NOVAFRICA Podcast: Targeting Social Assistance with Machine Learning

Episode 11 of Season 4 of NOVAFRICA Sustainable Development Talks with Joshua Blumenstock from the University of California, Berkeley, on his work entitled “Targeting Social Assistance with Machine Learning”.

How can nontraditional data such machine learning and mobile data be used to improve the targeting of humanitarian aid and the poor? What are the potential sources of exclusion errors and bias in using mobile phone data in targeting humanitarian aid, and how can they be addressed? How do the the advantages of the phone based approach and cost-effectiveness, compare to traditional methods of humanitarian aid distribution?

This episode answers all of these questions.

Listen to the Episode 11 here.

Find out more podcast series.