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Good practice Imported

Jokko Initiative — Mobile-Phone Literacy for Rural Women

Senegal · Vélingara · See the Senegal profile

Evidence: Observational / pre–post Top 39% 76/100 · Ask Evidence Copilot about this practice

Tostan and UNICEF taught SMS literacy to women in 25 villages in Vélingara, Senegal. A UC Berkeley (CEGA) evaluation found women scoring in the top literacy/numeracy band rose from 12% to 29%, and text-message writing ability jumped from 8% to 62%.

12% to 29%
Women in highest literacy/numeracy band (~4 months)
8% to 33%
Girls in highest literacy/numeracy band (~4 months)
8% to 62%
Participants able to write a text message (~4 months)
Jokko Initiative — Mobile-Phone Literacy for Rural Women

Details

Maturity
Pilot
Promoter
Tostan, with UNICEF Senegal
Period
2009-2011
Keywords
adult literacy, mobile technology, women's empowerment, community education

Context

Tostan, expanded with UNICEF from April 2009, taught adult women and girls in 25 villages of Vélingara, Senegal, to read and write SMS text messages in local languages using a low-literacy 'mango tree' menu and the open-source RapidSMS platform, reaching around 800 participants.

Results

An independent CEGA (UC Berkeley) evaluation using a baseline-and-follow-up design found the share of women scoring in the highest literacy/numeracy band rose from 12% to 29% (8% to 33% among girls), and the share able to write a text message jumped from 8% to 62% after about four months.

Conclusions

The evaluation also documented real constraints — limited electricity and unequal phone ownership between men and women — and the small pilot scale meant the approach was never verified at national scale.

Implementation

Implementation detail (cost, timeline, staffing, conditions for success) is not yet available for this practice.

Commonly funded by

Philanthropic / foundation funding

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Data sources

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