Smart Management of Malnutrition: Using Smartphones to Improve Child Health in Nigeria

In partnership with UNICEF, a team of SIPA students worked to design a framework to

standardise and facilitate the monitoring of Community Management of Acute Malnutrition (CMAM) programme using new mobile technology. By incorporating smartphones into the CMAM process, UNICEF and the team aimed to achieve three main goals:


1. Monitor data on a real-time basis

2. Assure the quality of CMAM performance data

3. Analyse data to inform actions and programming

The team worked extensively with UNICEF Nigeria’s Nutrition Division to assess the feasibility of smartphone-based monitoring, and subsequently developed a holistic set of smartphone monitoring tools using Open Data Kit (ODK) and Formhub software. The use of smartphones in the monitoring process can facilitate quicker data analysis and collection, which will allow UNICEF and its partners to respond to issues in a more timely and adequate manner. With a robust monitoring system, problems in underperforming states and regions would be better identified and addressed. In the long term, this process will allow staff to assess key trends to improve the management of the programme on a broader scale.