External Evaluation of Mobile Phone Technology-Based Nutrition and Agriculture Advisory Services in Africa and South Asia: Mobile Phones, Nutrition, and Health in Tanzania: Quantitative Endline Report

Abstract

The quantitative evaluation was designed as a cRCT, with two stages of randomisation: a village level randomisation where villages are assigned to a treatment group or to a control group, and a household-level randomisation within treatment villages whereby households are either assigned to receive the mNutrition content on just the mobile phone of the primary female or on the mobile phones of both the primary female and the primary male. In villages that were assigned to the treatment group, sampled households were offered access to the mNutrition content on their mobile phone, free of charge, through a door-to-door in-person visit. In villages that were assigned to the control group, no offer of access to the service was made. Though registration for the mNutrition service was possible for all households regardless of treatment assignment, and there was some Tanzania-wide advertising of the service through billboards and radio adverts, prebaseline discussions with the organisation implementing the mNutrition service in Tanzania suggested that take-up of their existing service was low in the study region.