Wakamoso
Wakamoso is a Setswana word meaning “The Future One”. It began as CDI’s data commons project and is now Wakamoso Africa, a South African research and data company in which CDI is a shareholder, alongside Infusion and Agility Works.
Wakamoso collects structured evidence directly from community members through WhatsApp — the channel most South Africans already use — with an offline-capable field app where signal cannot reach. Every response is geotagged, consented and POPIA-compliant, and results are returned as ward-level dashboards, published reports and data access for partners.
Built on CDI’s research
Wakamoso’s measurement framework draws on more than twenty years of community-based research carried out through CDI. At its centre is the C3B Community Capability & Conditions Baseline: sixty scored questions across eleven domains, cross-walked to established comparative frameworks including the Multidimensional Poverty Index, Afrobarometer and the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
The same baseline is read through three lenses: the Simmering Pot rubric for community-stability risk, the SDG Alignment Rubric for ward-level SDG reporting, and the Shared-Value Screen, which tests whether an engagement creates value back for the community.
Who uses it
Municipalities use Wakamoso for ward-level SDG tracking and service-delivery verification; development organisations for baselines, endlines and programme evaluation; businesses for consumer and workforce research; and universities and research agencies as a shared instrument and fieldwork layer. In Uitsig, Cape Town, a Wakamoso baseline replaced an assumed population of 68,000 with a verified ward-level estimate of 18,400 in under three weeks.
CDI’s commitment continues
CDI was founded on the view that people in lower-income communities should be visible in the evidence that shapes decisions about them, and should keep control over how their information is used. That principle carries through in Wakamoso’s explicit-consent and POPIA framework, and in its aim of making the invisible visible.