Summary

This PhD project, falling under the CARPA project (standing for Crowdsourcing Application for Responsible Production in Africa), aims to develop a web-based application based on crowdsourcing principles and study the impact such an application would have on the responsible local production in sub-Saharan African countries (primarily DR Congo, South Africa, and Mali). 

The research will consist of studies into the design decisions made to tailor the application for use in these sub-Saharan African environments, the technological challenges faced and overcome in developing for these environments, the feedback from and adoption by local and international stakeholders, the impact that the adoption, or lack thereof, of the application in the lives of local producers, and the meaning of these results in the context of overall international economic development literature.