Locations
With a little help from my neighbors
Red Con Vos, the test project that connects community markets through digital inclusion.
Overview
Red Con Vos is a project that scales an innovative territorial solution connecting community markets with digital inclusion. It is a network of local businesses where neighbors can complete digital procedures and access online services close to home, with the support of local shopkeepers. In addition to enabling people to do more things online—thereby promoting inclusive digitalization—the initiative saves them the time and money associated with completing these procedures in person.
To implement this solution, we invited local businesses that already had computer and internet access to participate and trained their staff to provide these services, becoming part of the network. Led by the Co_Lab —the Accelerator Lab—, UNDP Argentina has successfully implemented Red Con Vos twice to date: first in Concepción del Uruguay, Entre Ríos during 2021 in partnership with the Municipal Government; and later in Fray Mamerto Esquiú, Catamarca in 2022 and partnering with the Municipal Government and the Undersecretariat for Administrative Innovation of the Chief of the Cabinet of Ministers of Argentina.
Red Con Vos
Context
Red Con Vos draws on an innovative territorial initiative that was adapted by the Co_Lab to achieve higher levels of digital inclusion. The solution was first mapped in 2019 and appeared throughout different forms during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.
Digital environments enable access to products and services, many of them essential, including public goods and services. Today, the ability to complete procedures online is key to achieving greater levels of inclusion. However, in low-income neighborhoods, many people do not have access to smartphones, computers, or the internet to manage their procedures digitally. Even when they do, they may lack the knowledge or skills needed to complete them independently. As a result, they often have to visit government offices in person, which are generally located in city centers or even in other cities.
Consequently, residents must travel—and often walk—long distances. Once they reach these offices, they frequently encounter overcrowding and long waiting times. In addition, many people are unable to complete their procedures in person because work responsibilities limit their availability, physical limitations make traveling difficult, or they have children or dependents whose care is difficult or costly to delegate.
At the same time, local businesses play a fundamental role in facilitating access to products and services for people in their neighborhoods. These businesses can serve as vehicles for innovation, bringing new technologies to communities on a small scale that can quickly become essential, such as public telephones, photocopiers, printers, and mobile phone credit, among others. Similarly, local businesses can now contribute to digital inclusion by helping residents complete their procedures online. The network also benefits participating businesses, which receive a small payment for their services and, in most cases, experience an increase in sales.
People affected by these challenges are experts at navigating their own problems, and the solutions they develop can teach us valuable lessons about how to address them. The Co_Lab works with signals and future scenarios, as well as territorial solutions that it maps, tests, and scales in partnership with governments. Our goal is to understand the challenges that limit the development of people and communities and generate evidence through a systemic perspective and a portfolio approach.
Map of the project's associated commerces in Concepción del Uruguay.
NEW REPORT! RED CON VOS FRAY RESULTS
Between September and December 2022, the network reached 30 of the 80 businesses in Fray and one in the city of San Fernando del Valle de Catamarca, where 381 people completed 531 digital procedures. The results of this experience were similar to those of the first edition, implemented in 2021 in Concepción del Uruguay, Entre Ríos.
The main users of the network were women and people of working age. Users primarily turned to the network because they lacked the knowledge needed to complete online procedures on their own, but also because of the practicality and convenience it offered.
To learn more about the second successful Red Con Vos experience, implemented in Fray Mamerto Esquiú, Catamarca, in 2022, read the full report here.
Relevant information
Before the pandemic, some solutions similar to the one that inspired Red Con Vos already existed. However, the public health emergency and lockdown measures led to the spread of these solutions across the country. The Co_Lab first learned about this type of solution in 2019 through Sabrina Montenegro, a young business owner who runs a shop called “Empoderarte” in José León Suárez, Buenos Aires Province. In addition to selling stationery supplies, Sabrina helps people who visit her shop complete online procedures. In exchange, she charges a small fee for the service. For local residents, this represents an amount similar to what they save on transportation by completing the procedure online close to home, while also saving time and avoiding trips to offices located in downtown San Martín.
Sabrina told us that she trains herself to better assist her neighbors, researching how to complete procedures she is unfamiliar with. Sometimes, residents arrive having already completed part of a procedure, and she has to reconstruct the process to determine how to proceed. This showed that some of the keys to the success of this solution are, on the one hand, the patience, communication skills, and proactivity of the participating business owners and, on the other, the trust that neighbors place in them because they see them as peers.
In 2020, during the pandemic and in response to mandatory lockdown measures, similar solutions emerged in different parts of the country. Some were implemented informally in local businesses, spaces run by community leaders, and even in neighbors’ homes, where people helped one another. The Co_Lab scaled this solution by creating Red Con Vos. To do so, we recruited local businesses, trained participating shopkeepers, promoted the services offered by the stores, provided them with merchandising and promotional materials, and evaluated the results.
Red Con Vos
OBJETIVES
The Red Con Vos pilot test aims to:
- Promote digital inclusion by enabling more people to do more things online, including procedures, administrative tasks, and purchases.
- Reduce the time and costs that residents need to complete their procedures.
- Ease demand at in-person service centers of public agencies, such as ANSES.
- Strengthen the role of local businesses by enabling them to provide a new service to their communities.
- Boost local markets by encouraging residents to shop at neighborhood businesses.
Map of the project's associated commerces in Fray.
Achievements
There is no doubt that digital inclusion is more important than ever. Inspired by Sabrina’s story, we discovered that local businesses play a key role in improving the living conditions of residents and promoting the growth and development of their communities. Red Con Vos helped people complete more procedures digitally close to home, allowing them to save time and reduce the distance they had to travel.
Summary of the results of Red Con Vos in Concepción
Focusing on the Red Con Vos experience in Concepción del Uruguay, we learned that:
- Nearly 60% of residents who used the network did not know how to complete digital procedures, did not have the tools needed to do so, or both.
- The network helped residents of Concepción complete more procedures digitally close to home, saving a total of more than 637 hours and 293.7 kilometers by avoiding in-person visits to offices in the city center. Each user saved an average of 1.7 kilometers and 21.7 minutes.
- Local businesses gained new customers: 15.7% of network users were new customers, and participating businesses made additional sales to two out of every three residents who visited them to complete a procedure.
To learn more about the first successful experience, implemented in Concepción del Uruguay, Entre Ríos, in 2021, read the full report here.
Summary of the results of Red Con Vos in Fray
- Network users with lower levels of digital inclusion were women, older people, and those with lower levels of education.
- The average distance saved by completing procedures online through the network rather than in person was 6.8 km per person.
- A noteworthy finding was that some users chose the network regardless of the distance they could save. Excluding these cases, the average distance saved per person by using the network increased to 11.2 km.
- Finally, the network strengthened local markets: 27% of all users were new customers, and more than half made an additional purchase while completing their procedure.
Access the report with the results of Red Con Vos in Fray here.
This pilot once again demonstrates how an innovative territorial solution that works on a small scale can contain components that are replicable in other contexts. This is the main outcome of this second Red Con Vos experience. In both Concepción del Uruguay and Fray Mamerto Esquiú, local businesses adopted the network and residents used it. Innovative territorial solutions emerge from people’s ingenuity in contexts of need and can provide valuable insights for addressing the challenges they face.
Red Con Vos
The Co_Lab, UNDP's Accelaration Lab, works with functional solutions. Contact them at: equipo.lab.argentina@undp.org.
