Digicel signs service deal

 DIGICEL Papua New Guinea has signed a service agreement with the Department of Implementation and Rural Development to enable real-time data collection in the country. 

Head of advertising Dave Hammond said the SMS information service provided by the department would allow people to access survey questions based on district administration and acquittals. 

This follows a partnership the department developed under the public private partnership with UNICEF Papua New Guinea to use new mobile technology called RapidPro. 

RapidPro is UNICEF’s mobile-based system for real-time data collection to improve the monitoring of service delivery. 

It is a communication engine to power connections among decision-makers, frontline workers and government partners. 

Digicel was used as a provider for RapidPro projects in other countries and had demonstrated the technical capability needed to host the RapidPro platform in PNG. 

“Digicel is happy to work in partnership with DIRD and UNICEF in such project,” Hammond said. 

“This would allow Government and partners to build scalable mobile-based applications to collect and display information to improve development planning and programming.

UNICEF country representative Baba Danbappa said RapidPro “powers the way governments and development partners connect, engage, and collaborate directly with the most important and often most marginalised voices in the communities”.  

Department acting secretary Paul Sai’i said the department had identified an opportunity to use new mobile technology to assist with the institutionalisation of the district information management system. 

“This project aims to strengthen the collection of district level data to inform policy makers.”