2016 ICT4D Conference

In the late 1990's the United Nations created the MDGs to reinvigorate the international development sector around a number of big ideas, such as eradicating poverty and improving global health. The truth about their actual impact is more complex. There are many critics of them, especially focused on the way they were created (top down), if they had any impact (would have happened regardless of aid interventions), and the methodology and implementation (unattainable targets, unreliable data). At the time of the creation of the MDGs many of the IT technologies that we have today did not exist yet. The most important technology of all is probably the mobile phone. With the newly setup SDGs we now live in a world where IT technologies offer endless new possibilities. These technologies can especially help in more effectively keeping track of the progress being made, including monitoring of the SDGs. It is actually now possible to track a near 'real-time' what is happening on the ground.

At Akvo we create open source, internet and mobile software and sensors. We focus on making international development and country governance more effective, transparent and collaborative. We help our partners act to improve the management of water, sanitation, agriculture, health, energy, education and the environment. Our tools will also help in more effective monitoring of the SDGs.

Two examples of on-going global trends include From paper data collection to digital data collection (Akvo FLOW) and decentralized mobile water quality testing (Akvo Caddisfly).

A deeper dive into monitoring of the SDG Indicator 6.1.1: Percentage of population using safely managed drinking water services

"Method of computation: Household surveys and censuses currently provide information on types of basic drinking water sources listed above, and also indicate if sources are on premises. These data sources often have information on the availability of water and increasingly on the quality of water at the household level, through direct testing of drinking water for fecal or chemical contamination."

To ensure sustainable development for water, among other things we have to achieve safely managed drinking water services. There is only one way to do this in decentralized water systems, such as with rural water supply, but also within many urban situations, and that is to have decentralized water quality testing systems in place. Akvo's new and innovative water quality testing solutions provide easy to perform field screening tests, directly coupled to our large scale and proven field data collection system, Akvo FLOW.