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J e o n & a l . – A m o b i l e w a t e r p r o j e c t 249RationaleM-Maji aims to improve access to clean water by providing low-costinformation about water availability, price, and quality. By pooling waterinformation from multiple sources, it provides information beyond whatother search methods (e.g., gossip and word-of-mouth) deliver. It is alsoeconomically sensitive, relying on basic GSM (Global System for Mobile)phones, which are already broadly accessible in informal settlements.Moreover, it operates free of cost for individual users (USSD costs aresubsidized). Information accuracy is encouraged by the vendor ratingsystem and by the M-Maji support team on the ground, which will monitordata quality with regular surveys and random evaluations (for example,through drop-in testing of water quality).M-Maji is a novel approach to water supply problems in informalsettlements. Alternative approaches aim to increase water supply or quality.M-Maji tackles the information side of the problem. People struggle daily tolocate water and evaluate its quality, and may pay much higher prices thanthey would with better information. By providing better water informationto consumers, we seek not only to reduce the individual burden of findingwater, but also to equalize water prices across villages of Kibera, and makeclean water affordable to larger segments of the population.M-Maji’s promise is supported by a number of studies on water indeveloping countries. Randomized field experiments, for instance, haveshown that consumers who receive information regarding their waterquality are more likely to seek out a clean source and purify their water (e.g.,Jalan and Somanathan 2008). The demand for water is also estimated to behighly elastic at low prices but inelastic at high prices, indicating that cleanwater uptake can be increased through a price reduction mechanism(Kremer et al. 2009). And, more generally, mobile-for-development researchhas shown the promise of mobile technology in improving the efficiency ofcertain product markets by reducing information costs (Jensen 2007, Aker &Mbiti 2010). Whether this same logic extends from markets for perishablegoods (fish) and goods of relatively uniform quality (grain) to water marketsis one of the issues we hope to address.EvaluationAs a first step in developing M-Maji, we are conducting a randomizedimpact evaluation in Kibera to test our system’s potential for improvingclean water access in urban slums. Randomized impact evaluations are thegold standard of impact evaluations (see Duflo et al. 2006), and they proceed