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Social Tensions RCA Study in Lebanon

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People’s Perspectives of Emergency Multi-Purpose Cash Assistance in Central Sulawesi and West Nusa Tenggara

Following the July 2018 earthquake in West Nusa Tenggara and the September 2018 earthquake and tsunami in Central Sulawesi, UNICEF and its partners introduced Multi-purpose Cash Assistance (MPCA) programs as part of their efforts to support recovery in communities. UNICEF commissioned Empatika to understand people's experiences after these disasters, and specifically their perspectives and experiences of the MPC assistance.

For this qualitative assessment our team visited two communities each in Donggala, Palu, and Sigi in Central Sulawesi (May 2019); and two communities in North Lombok in West Nusa Tenggara (July 2019). The insights gathered from the study have helped inform learning for the Cash Working Group and its partners about best practices in MPC assistance during emergencies from the perspectives of beneficiaries.

Some of the key findings from this study included: 

• People want cash, although ‘in-kind’ assistance was appreciated right after the disaster before markets resumed normally.
• People prefer receiving cash assistance early on because i. livelihoods were disrupted and families had limited to no earnings to meet expenses, and ii. assistance cash could be used to buy what people needed to fill gaps in external aid.
• People had limited information about the MPCA programme, including recipients who too had limited or unclear information relating to disbursement frequency and dates, and required documentation.
  
• People thought the house damage criteria for assistance eligibility (as was used in Donggala and Palu) is opaque with levels of damage open to interpretation. Targeting based on having young children seemed to be more accepted.
  
• People in Central Sulawesi were critical of the programme’s rationale for using bank accounts as a way to encourage financial inclusion. Most people do not have savings and did not expect to continue using their accounts.
  

See the report

Study Summary Briefs
Central Sulawesi  (English)  (Indonesian)
North Lombok  (English)  (Indonesian)

Supporting Girls to Thrive:
Baseline Mixed Methods Study

Last year Empatika partnered with Stats4SD to conduct a mixed methods baseline study commissioned by UNICEF Indonesia to support the start of their programme on supporting girls to thrive in West Papua. The study explored a wide range of issues including literacy, WASH, in-school participation, life skills, bullying and violence.

The quantitative portion of this mixed methods study used a survey conducted with students and teachers at eight schools (4 SMP and 4 SD) in the Sorong district of West Papua. During the survey an Early Grade Reading Assessment (EGRA) was also conducted with grade 2 and 3 students. Following the survey fieldwork our researchers returned to conduct a RCA immersion in three of the survey locations, staying with some of the students to gain deeper insights and learn more from the students, their families, and the surrounding community. School observations were also conducted both during the survey fieldwork and the immersions in order to help complete the picture around these issues.

Some of the key findings from the study include:

• Students are in general happy, physically active, enjoy school and feel relatively safe.
• In many aspects boys are doing less well than girls at both SD and SMP level although more so at SMP level.
• Papuan students are often treated differently and discriminated against both in school and in mixed-ethnicity communities. This affects how teachers view their Papuan students but also how Papuan students see themselves.
• Physical punishment is widespread in schools but is used more for boys and particularly male SMP students; however very few students have a strongly negative view of physical punishment.

See the report

• Students made clear distinctions in their assessment of what constitutes harassment and felt that the level of inter-student teasing and ‘banter’ did not amount to harassment although students considered to be 'geeky' were said to be the least likely to cope well with this.
• WASH knowledge and practices were poor and not integrated into day-to-day teaching and learning.
  
• Absenteeism is high with both teachers and students and school contact hours are on average quite low.

See the report

See the Study Brief (English)

Study Brief (Indonesian)

Let's get back to our routine: Listening to children who were affected by the Central Sulawesi earthquake and tsunami

Empatika was engaged by Yayasan Sayangi Tunas Cilik (YSTC), UNICEF, Yayasan Plan International Indonesia (YPII), and Wahana Visi Indonesia (WVI) as part of their relief assistance and recovery efforts in Central Sulawesi to consult with children and caregivers affected by the Central Sulawesi Earthquake and Tsunami. The findings are expected to help influence the agencies’ child centered response planning on how to support the recovery phase and people’s long-term needs by optimising children’s resilience and community coping strategies.

This study was conducted using participatory focus group discussions (pFGDs) in two communities in each of three affected most affected districts (Palu, Donggala and Sigi), involving a total of 244 primary school-age and secondary school-age children. We also had opportunistic interactions with pregnant women and caregivers of small children to include their perspectives. Our approach to pFGDs intentionally moves away from the traditional FGD question-and-answer format to a more participatory form where interactive hands-on exercises, visuals, photos, drawings, written, or drama-based elements are used to seed discussion to gain insights into the perspectives of study participants.

RCA study: Urban Villages - Perspectives and Experience of Migrants and Their Families on Moving from Villages to Cities

This Reality Check Approach (RCA) study was commissioned by The World Bank and carried out in November to December 2017. The RCA findings in this report are supported by big data analysis from Pulse Lab Jakarta (PLJ). The objective of this study was to provide people-centred insights to feed into the World Bank’s Poverty and Social Development Global Practices current analytical project to help the Government of Indonesia better understand the process of urbanization in Indonesia, particularly through learning more about rural to urban migration in the country.

See the Report