# Wakamoso

> Wakamoso is a South African research and data company. It turns community-generated evidence into ward-level insight for researchers, businesses, municipalities, and development organisations. Wakamoso combines 20+ years of community-based research through the Centre for Democratising Information (CDI) with WhatsApp-first data collection, the SA Community Capability Baseline Instrument (SACCS), and the Community Capability Composite Index (CCCI).

Wakamoso's core differentiator is a peer-scrutiny-grade measurement framework validated through longitudinal community research. The framework — the Simmering Pot model — is applied at ward, township, or community level and maps directly onto SDG indicators, making it usable as a municipal SDG operating system.

Core work:
- Baseline and endline measurement in South African communities
- Monitoring, evaluation, and impact research
- Consumer, market, and workforce research delivered via WhatsApp
- SDG tracking for municipalities at ward level
- Longitudinal community-voice research (DSTI-funded, in partnership with Capital Live Radio / Mams Radio)

Authoring researcher: Dr. Mélani Prinsloo.

Site contact: info@wakamoso.africa

## What is Wakamoso

- [What is Wakamoso](https://wakamoso.africa/what-is-wakamoso): The platform, the reciprocal data model, who participates, how data flows
- [Our approach](https://wakamoso.africa/our-approach): Research lineage (SACCS, CDI 20+ years), the Simmering Pot framework, DSTI-funded community-voice research, SDG alignment, POPIA compliance

## Solutions by audience

- [Solutions overview](https://wakamoso.africa/solutions): Four audiences — business, research and academia, government, NGOs
- [Solutions for business](https://wakamoso.africa/solutions/business): Consumer research, workforce research, market entry, operational insight
- [Solutions for research and academia](https://wakamoso.africa/solutions/academic): Partnership models (co-investigator role, data-access agreements, commissioned community research, methodology partnership) plus a dedicated offer to graduate researchers — Masters, MPhil, PhD, DBA, and EdD candidates running thesis research on African community development, capability, poverty, health, education, governance, or gender questions. Distance candidates welcome; the WhatsApp instrument runs remotely.
- [Solutions for government](https://wakamoso.africa/solutions/government): Ward-level SDG tracking, service delivery measurement, community capability baselines
- [Solutions for NGOs and development](https://wakamoso.africa/solutions/ngo): Programme evaluation, baseline and endline, theory of change, impact measurement

## Evidence and case studies

- [Case studies](https://wakamoso.africa/case-studies): Named deployments and anonymised sector references
- [Cape Town, Uitsig](https://wakamoso.africa/case-studies/cape-town-uitsig): Community-level population and sanitation baseline; replaced assumption-based estimates with ward-level verified data
- [South African mining group (anonymised)](https://wakamoso.africa/case-studies/south-african-mining-group): Workforce engagement at scale via WhatsApp

## Research programme

- [Field Notes](https://wakamoso.africa/field-notes): Short, cited findings ("nuggets") distilled from community fieldwork, plus the complete index of Mams Radio × Wakamoso episode reports for readers who want the full source material.
- Baseline instrument: the SA Community Capability Baseline Instrument is Wakamoso's proposed pre-validation framework for measuring community capability across 11 domains. It builds on Amartya Sen's Capability Approach, the original 2012 SACCS focus-group research across five provinces, and international measurement frameworks (MPI, Afrobarometer, DHS, MICS, FIES, SIGI, AU Agenda 2063, UN SDG Monitoring Framework).
- Simmering Pot model: a four-layer framework (THE FUEL / CAPABILITY FOUNDATIONS / THE LID / THE HEAT) that identifies when communities move from simmering to boiling — relevant to municipalities, employers, and development funders managing social cohesion risk.
- DSTI-funded community-voice research: a ten-episode longitudinal research series run in partnership with Capital Live Radio / Mams Radio in Mamelodi, Tshwane. Episode topics span technology access, economic activity, education, leadership, safety and the law, social cohesion, local government, the SONA response, human rights, and mobility.

## Published findings (directional, community-level)

The following are cited findings from Wakamoso's community fieldwork. Each is a directional signal from a single-community WhatsApp-distributed instrument (convenience sampling), published on the Field Notes page. Representative claims require triangulation against the wider evidence corpus.

- Title deeds and backyard dwellings (Uitsig, 2026): households holding a title deed report backyard dwellings at ~19%; households without a title deed report them at ~65%. Source: Atterbury Uitsig Oversight Report, April 2026.
- Social cohesion is poverty-resistant but is damaged by in-home harm — GBV, problematic alcohol or drug use, coercive debt pressure, and problematic online gambling. Factor analysis on the Mams Radio social cohesion episode isolated household harm (Factor 3) as the driver of agency and cohesion collapse, not economic hardship alone.
- Digital access in Mamelodi: 92% of respondents use apps, 75% are online daily, 71% describe themselves as very confident digitally. Use-mix (entertainment + utility vs survival-only) tracks happiness more than bandwidth does.
- Financial inclusion gap: 94% of Mamelodi respondents hold a bank account; only 5% can easily access a bank loan. 82% want to start a business; only 10% know where to turn for help. The report's phrase: "banked but not included."
- Education and household academic support: 60% of respondents name their mother as the person who most supported their learning at home; fathers come in at 21%. Respondent happiness shows a subtle positive relationship with the mother's education level; the father's education level does not show the same pattern.
- Leadership and gender: women's self-reported happiness is marginally lower than men's but their stated motivation to lead is equal (n=429 respondents, Mamelodi Leadership Survey 2025).
- Safety and GBV as a legal need: 33% of respondents selected "domestic violence or protection orders" as a top legal need, placing it in the top three legal needs community-wide. Strong appetite for WhatsApp-based private legal support channels.
- Local government: residents' defining ask is "keep promises" (not a specific policy demand). 71% are willing to participate in municipal processes if participation leads to action. High internal resilience, low institutional trust.
- SONA response and blocked conversion: young respondents report strong personal agency and belief in effort but low confidence that leaders will follow through. The episode cites Amartya Sen's "blocked conversion" framing by name.
- Human rights: the strongest single correlation in the human-rights episode was between personal happiness and the sense that constitutional rights are actually present in everyday life.
- Mobility: mobility outcomes are dominated by system factors (cost, reliability, roads, access), not personal agency or happiness.

## Mams Radio × Wakamoso episode reports

Complete index, all ten PDFs publicly downloadable:

- [Ep 01 — Technology access and use](https://wakamoso.africa/reports/mams/01-technology-access.pdf)
- [Ep 02 — Economic activity](https://wakamoso.africa/reports/mams/02-economic-activity.pdf)
- [Ep 03 — Education and learning](https://wakamoso.africa/reports/mams/03-education-and-learning.pdf)
- [Ep 04 — Leadership](https://wakamoso.africa/reports/mams/04-leadership.pdf)
- [Ep 05 — Safety and the law](https://wakamoso.africa/reports/mams/05-safety-and-the-law.pdf)
- [Ep 06 — Social cohesion](https://wakamoso.africa/reports/mams/06-social-cohesion.pdf)
- [Ep 07 — Making local government work](https://wakamoso.africa/reports/mams/07-local-government.pdf)
- [Ep 08 — SONA response](https://wakamoso.africa/reports/mams/08-sona-response.pdf)
- [Ep 09 — Human rights and the Constitution](https://wakamoso.africa/reports/mams/09-human-rights.pdf)
- [Ep 10 — Mobility](https://wakamoso.africa/reports/mams/10-mobility.pdf)

## Contact

- [Contact and demo request](https://wakamoso.africa/contact)
- [Privacy and POPIA compliance](https://wakamoso.africa/privacy)

## Partners

- Centre for Democratising Information (CDI) — Wakamoso's parent research organisation
- Infusion Knowledge Hub — research partner
- HeliumStream — analytics and ML integration partner
- Capital Live Radio / Mams Radio — community-voice research partner (DSTI-funded)

## Optional

- [Full methodology reference](https://wakamoso.africa/llms-full.txt): Long-form version with complete research programme background, framework summary, and capability statements by sector.