Mar 15, 2019
Using communication and collaboration to gather high quality data in a complex emergency setting
As part of the Safer Cash project, a two-year research program funded by OFDA, IRC staff have been conducting operational research on a pilot intervention in Afghanistan to mitigate protection risks for beneficiaries of cash assistance. Over the past two years, the research project has examined the experiences of IRC clients who live in some of the most hard-to-access locations where the IRC works. IRC Research Supervisor Zabih Buda shares the keys to conducting successful research in a complex context such as Afghanistan.
Every morning for the past five weeks, Zabih Buda has started his day on the phone.
“I contact the data collection officers every morning and I instruct them on what tasks need to be done that day.”
As the Research Supervisor for the Safer Cash research program in Afghanistan, Zabih is the central focal point of an extended research team that includes: two active data collection teams in the field (one in Nangarhar province and another in Badghis), IRC Emergency Response teams in both locations, and university academic partners and an IRC research coordinator back at HQ.
With over five years of experience conducting research in remote areas of the country, Zabih says the key to success is communication — and a lot of patience. However, being constantly on the phone pays off.
“Contacting the data collection officers several times in one day has enabled me to track everything. They do face several issues in a day, whether it’s administrative issues inside the office or data collection issues with beneficiaries in the field. So, by having numerous phone calls every day during data collection, I have been able to solve their issues on the spot.”
To triangulate all of the information he’s receiving and to keep his teams organized, Zabih also maintains and monitors multiple online databases where data and tracking information can be uploaded and stored for all members of the research team to review in real-time. He sends a summary report to the US-based research team at the end of the day, and they work together to solve any issues that have large methodological or financial considerations.
“Mostly we make our decisions collectively through sharing our concerns and advice to each other until a final decision is made,” says Zabih.
This multi-layered, collaborative management structure is what allows us to conduct valuable operational research in one of IRC’s most challenging contexts. The Safer Cash program involves two stages of research: in the first stage, the Human Rights Center at the University of California Berkeley conducted qualitative research in Herat and Nangarhar provinces in Afghanistan and in Maroua, Cameroon in early 2018; and in the second stage, the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative is currently leading rigorous operational research in Afghanistan to assess the pilot of the Safer Cash Toolkit. Three rounds of mixed-methods data collection are being conducted among IRC beneficiaries and program staff from February through May 2019. The ultimate goal of the program is to produce a user-friendly toolkit that will support program teams to monitor and mitigate protection risks for IRC cash beneficiaries in acute emergency settings.
Coordinating a project of this scale would be a challenge in any context, but it is particularly difficult in a region where insecurity requires both careful planning and constant flexibility. The security situation can shift at any moment, and there are regular disruptions to normal program activities and access due to ongoing threats from armed groups. Local political events and affiliations, tension between villages, shifting jurisprudence, and other complex social factors also impact operations on the ground.
“These things should be considered very seriously in remote areas of Afghanistan when doing research,” says Zabih.
His top priority is ensuring the safety and security of the research participants and his data collection teams at all times, and he does so by working closely with the Emergency Response teams on the ground in both provinces. The data collection teams travel with IRC program staff to the field to conduct surveys, utilizing IRC’s established presence on the ground to reach and assess populations that would otherwise be difficult to access. This approach proved key when armed groups moved into areas nearby one of the research sites, preventing enumerators from being able to get in touch with the research participants. The data collection team worked with the IRC program staff to use local community networks to contact beneficiaries. “The enumerators were able to follow up with the beneficiaries through an intermediate person who either went to find those families or informed them to turn on their cell phones,” explained Zabih. This helped the data collection team reach almost 50 more beneficiaries than they would have been able to reach without this approach.
In addition to working with the local IRC field offices on the research, Zabih also emphasizes the importance of hiring local data collection teams in order to gain the trust and cooperation of the community.
“You have to hire data collectors from the population, if possible, because they will know how to speak with the community and the community will trust them.”
He chose to hire local candidates to fill the research positions — two data collection officers and 12 enumerators — from the provinces, rather than bringing in teams from Kabul. These teams also played a significant role in helping us craft the surveys in Dari and Pashto so that they would accurately translate key concepts to the research participants. While Zabih checks in with the individual enumerators on a weekly basis, having the province-based data collection officers on-hand to manage the teams and report back to him has been essential for effective decision-making.
Many of the incidents that Zabih navigates with his research teams in Badghis and Nangarhar are resolved long before work begins in the morning back in the US. The 9.5 hour time difference, not to mention the regular breakdowns in internet connection and phone service that are common in settings like rural Afghanistan, have driven home the importance of having a dedicated team on-site to oversee and troubleshoot data collection. With such an efficient structure on the ground, we have successfully surveyed 304 beneficiaries in just a few weeks and will survey over 900 by the end of the study in July, gathering valuable, high-quality information about the experiences of IRC beneficiaries. With this information, the Safer Cash project team hopes to support IRC and other humanitarian organizations with implementing the safest, most effective programming models to deliver cash assistance to vulnerable populations.
This study is made possible by the generous support of the American people through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The contents are the responsibility of the IRC and do not necessarily reflect the views of USAID or the United States Government.
IRC’s academic partners for the Safer Cash project include the Human Rights Center at the University of California Berkeley School of Law and the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative at Harvard University.
