As part of developing COVID-19 related protocols and brainstorming internally for how to adjust and adapt to the current situation, our team also had the opportunity to brainstorm with the Pulse Lab Jakarta (PLJ) team during a series of sharing sessions beginning in June of this year. We have collaborated with PLJ on previous studies including a study on Rural to Urban Migration in Indonesia. One of the things we have always liked about PLJ is that while a lot of their work is cutting-edge, they maintain an emphasis on making data work for people, sharing people’s stories and presenting data and insights in interesting and easily digestible ways.

The initial idea for the sharing sessions was to explore how to approach conducting quality qualitative research remotely, especially for more remote areas and/or with people who might have more limited access to technology or more limited experience in using it. Through these sharing sessions we hoped to develop up-to-date and contextualized approaches for doing research remotely and how to incorporate different tools and technologies in the process.

The sharing sessions were done over an initial four week period, with one session each week facilitated by PLJ. In the first session we discussed some of the possible methods that can be used for remote research that we use as a basis for the upcoming sessions. Based on some of the possible remote work we anticipated doing, we narrowed down the discussion to: Phone Interviews; Photo/Video elicitation; and Diaries.

Next we talked about what aspects we need to consider when using these methods (or any others). This included identifying the participants, the length/duration for the data collection, best practices for approaching participants, ensuring a 'safe space' for participants and other considerations such as ethics.

The next week, we dove into the three methods to try and see what kinds of challenges we may face during the research process, particularly when working with people in more rural areas as we often do for our studies. Some of the challenges we highlighted included:

• participants' with limited technology familiarity
• bad/inconsistent phone signal
• not being able to see non-verbal gestures and cues
• ensuring participants feel comfortable (also relates to consent)
• participants availability
• participant retention over the study duration
• the possibility to misinterpret visuals (send by the researcher or participant), along with others.

After identifying these challenges, we discussed possible ways that we can tackle them if we face them during research, and any ways that we could avoid them with better prep or strategies.

The final of the first four sessions we framed around designing a remote study (using the same three methods) looking at Covid-19 impacts and social assistance. For this we spent time identifying some of the possible research questions, discussing what are the insights we are looking for and trying to contextualize the methods. For contextualizing the methods, we discussed technology (what kind of media or platform can be appropriately used, network coverage, etc.); personality (how to ensure participants to feel safe, what kind of communication approach, etc), and time (consent, when is the best time to contact, how to arrange the schedule, etc) considerations. For each item we tried to emphasize putting participants first.

All in all, these sessions were an exciting learning experience. Certainly from our end, our team left the sessions inspired and they helped broaden our understanding of the possibilities and considerations for remote research. And like any research methods, it will be a continuous learning process!

After these sharing sessions, each organization was also able to test out many of the things we discussed during our own respective remote research studies. For Empatika, we officially started our Covid-19 Remote Qualitative Insights Gathering study for UNICEF in July and are currently working on the second of three rounds in this longitudinal remote study (learn more below or click here). For PLJ, they spent much of October and early November working on a remote mixed methods study with UN Women and Gojek on ‘Leveraging Digitalization to Cope with COVID-19: An Indonesian case study on women-owned micro and small businesses’ where they worked with small/micro business owners in Jakarta and West Java (see their case study report here).

In mid-November, our teams then came together again for a follow-up session where we were able to share some of our experiences with remote research so far. We talked about what surprised each of us so far with carrying out remote research, what were the biggest challenges we’ve faced, and what were our lessons learned.

PLJ also found that from the client side, it seemed that there was a greater expectation that the research could be conducted much quicker than a regular study since interactions were just done remotely (and our Empatika team would agree that remote interactions does not necessarily equal faster/easier data collection).

From the Empatika side, our team found that carrying out research remotely is much more time consuming and draining (physically and mentally) than most of us anticipated. Some of the more specific challenges included:

• Inability to read gestures, to easily triangulate information with others, and to more easily have others involved in conversations
• For many it was difficult to match calls and WhatsApp/other interactions with participants’ variable routines and this required researchers to allocate chunks of time every day during the most intensive part of the interactions (each round done primarily over two weeks). This was especially true as many researchers are contacting multiple families.
• It was more time consuming than anticipated to explain some of the multimedia tools that we designed to participants
• And of course all of this was influenced by the fact that most of our participants are living in rural areas with inconsistent phone/internet signal.

In the end, we found that we’ve learned a lot through carrying out remote research and it has shown us that there are even more possibilities for the tools/methods available to us, and that these possibilities could also include mixing both remote and direct interactions with participants. Still, it’s clear that we’re still very much a team that likes to be in the field and interacting with people face-to-face. Hopefully the end of this pandemic will be in sight soon!

One of the interesting reflections during our discussion was how in some cases the extra distance between participants actually helped to reduce any unnecessary discussion between participants. We also found that visuals were still really helpful to make the interactions more engaging for participants.

All in all, it has been a very fruitful learning experience for our team and we will continue to update our guidelines as needed as the situation changes. Although many of us still miss being able to live directly with people in the field, we are adjusting and adapting to this 'new' situation and are open to other approaches during this pandemic time. Another study we recently started will be experimenting with remote qualitative research. We look forward to sharing some of the experiences from that process soon!

Want to hear directly from some of our researchers about their first experience doing fieldwork during this pandemic time? Have a look at this short clip from the field.

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.

We used a mix of participatory tools for the study including scoping immersions for context and relationship building; participatory focus group discussions (pFGDs) for exploring the study topics in-depth; and digital storytelling (DST) workshops to help enrich some of the study insights and aid the study partners in promoting continued discussions around the study topics.

During the scoping immersions and pFGDs, our team had in-depth interactions with 216 men and women in these communities, of whom 149 were recipients and 67 were non-recipients of the MPCA. Following this fieldwork, we returned to one community in Sigi and one community in North Lombok in July for conducting DST workshops with a combination of beneficiaries and non-beneficiaries.

The DST workshop in Sigi included 11 mothers along with one grandfather who is the main caregiver for his twin grandchildren. In the North Lombok community, our team conducted two workshops, one in the more central area of the community (five mothers) where we had conducted the pFGDs along with a separate workshop in one of the remote areas of the community (7 mothers) in order to include some women who face significant access issues and who did not receive the MPC assistance. Insights from the finished DST videos are included in the final report, highlighting some of the personal stories as they relate to different study topics.

View the full report or study briefs here.

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. Cash expenses, either regular (e.g. gasoline) or additional expenses (as a direct result of disasters like water, cooking utensils) were incurred by families in the first few weeks after the disaster as the immediate assistance provided to most locations was sporadic, unequal and insufficient.
• 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 somewhat limited information about the MPCA programme. Non-recipients of the programme were typically not invited to socialisation sessions nor had clear information about programme plans. Recipients 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. Trust in village officials to identify levels of damage correctly was low especially as people were aware of the lack of standard guidelines provided by the government. Targeting based on having young children (targeting mothers of children under 7 years old and pregnant women) 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 they do not expect to continue using their accounts in the future. Deductions made by the bank (to meet minimum balances) was also an issue of contention.

The study team also plans to return to the two communities in North Lombok once it is safer to do so to share some examples of the final study outputs and to discuss the study process from their perspectives.

We have published our second brief synthesizing insights relevant to the ongoing COVID-19 response, this one based on the two immersion studies conducted by our team in Uganda. Like the Indonesia brief, we have highlighted key relevant findings along with the implications for COVID-19 programming and policies in Uganda.

The studies in Uganda were conducted in 2017 and involved training a team of enthusiastic Ugandan researchers who lived with 50 families across 15 different districts in northern, eastern, and central Uganda.

Some of the insights include, for example, that i) daily chores such as collecting water are time consuming and as women tend to also handle day-to-day education and health matters, they may be under increased pressure and stress with potential impacts on husband-wife relationships; ii) most people prefer to receive cash assistance rather than in-kind assistance; and iii) most families prefer to sell directly to middlemen that come to the village/their farms because of the convenience which may limit their options during the current COVID crisis.

As one of our studies in Uganda also focused on old people’s experiences with the Uganda Senior Citizen Grants, we have highlighted insights that are particularly relevant for this group as well.

View the full brief here.

The COVID-19 pandemic is likely to hit low income countries – and specifically the poorest people within these countries – the hardest. Governments, UN Agencies and development programmes need to react both quickly and effectively to prevent the worst from happening. Global public health programmes have taught us that the best health policies and programmes are those which are evidence-based. This has already proven imperative during this crisis, as people are being asked to dramatically alter their daily lives in order to keep themselves and those around them safe.

At Empatika we know that, for example, government messaging through WhatsApp groups and on Facebook is not sufficient to promote behaviour change, even for practices as simple as washing hands. There is ample evidence from our immersion research that such messages are often ignored and that people’s understanding of health, hygiene and cleanliness is needed to support change.

Why do some health behaviour change programmes work and others do not? Our immersion-based research provides insights into people’s everyday lives and allows us to consider what people say and what they do, within their own reality. By living with families in over 75 rural and urban locations in Indonesia, we have gathered insights that can be used to address public health challenges. These details are essential to tailoring messages and approaches to address the drivers of key health behaviours, like hand washing, breast feeding, or health seeking practices.

Social distancing and travel restrictions limit the options available to collect up-to-date information on how people are responding to the pandemic. However, Empatika’s extensive experiential insights gathered over more than six years may help inform responsive interventions. This includes a network of families across Indonesia with whom we have lived and can communicate with remotely to assess behaviour change and community responses to the crisis. We hope to be able to share these insights and their implications to support policy makers and programmes to design the most effective interventions and forms of support possible to help communities get through the pandemic.