In a post in the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s “Impatient Optimists” blog, Christopher Elias, president of global development at the foundation, examines a program “known as PMA2020, [which] is using mobile technology to help 10 countries — eight in Africa and two in Asia — improve their family planning services.” He writes, “PMA2020 will generate valid estimates of contraceptive prevalence, quality of care, and other key indicators on an annual basis, which will allow countries to make evidence-based decisions about policies and programs on a schedule that more closely corresponds with annual planning cycles,” noting, “Until now, the availability of nationally representative, population-based data to inform progress of family planning programs has been limited, generally coming from surveys done once every five years” (12/2).