Pact, partners featured for mobile tech use in Swaziland

Pact’s use of mobile technology in Swaziland has helped local partners deliver more effective HIV services, including improved targeting of the neediest among more than 10,000 orphans and vulnerable children.

Using Mobenzi, a mobile phone service, Pact worked with Save the Children Swaziland (SCSWD) and the Coordinating Assembly of NGOs (CANGO) to gather data on 10,244 children surveyed to determine the most vulnerable.

The data was used to help SCSWD redesign its program to identify children who were abused, lacked national identity papers or had dropped out of school and to realign its budget to provide them with additional support.  

The work with SCSWD and CANGO, two of six local organizations in Swaziland that Pact helped build capacity to use mobile data collection, was featured in USAID’s latest mHealth Compendium.

The survey of children was part of Pact’s Community REACH program in Swaziland, a USAID-funded endeavor that has been providing capacity building services to civil society organizations designed to help them deliver effective HIV prevention, care, treatment and mitigation services.