The power of an SMS?

There is no shortage of articles out there on mobile phones in Africa. It is easy to read about the rapid growth of phones and the revolutionary services available such as mobile banking. You also hear about how mobile phones are bringing life saving information and support to rural clinics, helping farmers get better prices for their goods, aiding disaster relief efforts and allowing everyday citizens to become government monitors. All this brought to you by the power of SMS. In 160 characters someone can send you a diagnosis, the market price of wheat, the location of a group of people who need water and food and about corruption occurring in a community.

As I start to look at Twaweza partners and their SMS-based projects I am going to think more about who is actually engaging with these sorts of projects and using SMS be a citizen reporter. While we in the US or any other developed nation could also be using the internet to lobby a Senator, or write a letter to the editor about an issue we care about, most of us are using it to update our facebook page and check World Cup scores. So what triggers someone to decide to use their technology resources for civic participation? Is it the issue, is it someone's personal characteristics? We already know it requires a certain education level and status to be able to write a text message and have access to a phone. But what else leads to successful uptake in these programs?

Another question is even once NGOs have gathered data from citizens who send in SMS reports about community issues will governments or other organizations trust the data enough to change policies or programs or otherwise respond?

I head off Monday to the Twaweza partner Daraja which is about to kick off a citizen water monitoring project. They will launch a media campaign to let people know the short code where they can text in to report a broken water point in their community. It should be interesting to see who will be the early responders and what reasons spark their participation. (Though this information will become available well after my visit.) This sort of information as it becomes available should prove helpful to other Twaweza partners and organizations considering similar projects. Also down the road as we see the government and community response to data gathered we can start to better address this question of: "Just how powerful is an SMS in creating change?"