The research team is collecting data on the impacts of COVID-19 as experienced by customers of social enterprises around the world.
Indigenous communities are often socially and economically marginalized which makes them particularly vulnerable to the impact of COVID-19. The Population Council has a longstanding partnership with indigenous communities in Mexico through the "Abriendo Futuros" program.
Due to social distancing measures and school closures—and given the challenge to reach rural students—the Ministry of Education of Peru developed Aprendo en Casa (AeC), a multi-platform remote education strategy. Results of a survey aimed at monitoring its take-up suggest that less than half of homes that access AeC through radio are satisfied with it, and nearly half of parents report they require more support in order to help their children.
Tracking how people’s lives are affected by the COVID-19 pandemic can enable policymakers to better understand the situation in their countries and make data-driven policy decisions. To respond to this need, IPA has developed the RECOVR survey—a panel survey that will facilitate comparisons, document real-time trends of policy concern, and inform decision-makers about the communities that are hardest-hit by the economic toll of the pandemic.
School closures resulting from lockdowns to limit the spread of COVID-19 threaten to result in learning loss for students, particularly young children in vulnerable contexts. In order to evaluate the short-term impacts of distance learning efforts, researchers need to be able to effectively assess student learning outcomes remotely.
Lockdowns and social distancing strategies in response to COVID-19 threaten small businesses, undermining a critical income source for vulnerable populations. Sudden economic hardship, psychosocial risks and uncertainty about the future triggers stress and anxiety. Imagery could help as a tool to boost resilience in response to the pandemic by enabling individuals to recognise its temporariness, innovate, mentally simulate contingency plans and practice steps to recover.
Young Lives longitudinal survey began in 2001, with two cohorts, one born in 2000 (8,000 children) and one born in 1994 (4,000 children). Young Lives had planned to undertake a sixth round of quantitative fieldwork in 2020, now replaced with a Computer-Assisted-Telephone-Survey (CATI) comprising three phone calls. Call 1 (June-July 2020): Explain the phone survey this year and in-person gain consent for the main survey.
Researchers are implementing two rounds of phone-based surveys to a large sample of couples in urban Peru to: (i) understand the impact on IPV and intra-household conflict of restrictions instituted to contain the spread of COVID-19; (ii) characterize couples at heightened risk of IPV as a result of these measures in order to increase understanding of risk factors for IPV and inform the government’s response to IPV by helping them target services to couples most in need; and (iii) evaluate th
Tracking how people’s lives are affected by the COVID-19 pandemic can enable policymakers to better understand the situation in their countries and make data-driven policy decisions. To respond to this need, IPA has developed the RECOVR survey—a panel survey that will facilitate comparisons, document real-time trends of policy concern, and inform decision-makers about the communities that are hardest-hit by the economic toll of the pandemic.
- Forty-three percent of respondents reported that someone in their household skipped necessary healthcare since the start of the National Quarantine.
- Over half of respondents say they have reduced their number of meals in the last week.
- Over half of respondents say they would not be able to find COP 1,000,000 (around USD$270) to pay for an emergency.
- Half of all respondents who worked at all in February are still working. Of those still working, 20 percent earned less and 15 percent worked fewer hours in the past week.
- The vast majority of households living with school-aged children report that those children are still spending time on school.
In order to limit the spread of COVID-19, governments in Latin America have adopted measures to increase social distancing, including closing schools and limiting mobility. Ministries of Education in the region have transitioned to distance education programs, with caregivers playing a key role in accompanying the learning process at home. However, parents may lack the knowledge and skills to provide an effective support to their children.
The coronavirus pandemic imposes not only a global health threat but also an economic shutdown in many countries. Such a shock poses a particularly large risk for the poor in developing countries who often have highly vulnerable income sources, limited savings, and a lack of adequate safety nets to fall back on.
Indigenous communities are often socially and economically marginalized which makes them particularly vulnerable to the impact of COVID-19. The Population Council has a longstanding partnership with indigenous communities in Guatemala through the Abriendo Oportunidades (AO) program. To understand the knowledge, perspectives, and needs related to the COVID-19 pandemic, we will conduct key informant interviews with indigenous community leaders and frontline workers.
- 100 percent of respondents are aware of COVID-19, and 74 percent know that anyone can get infected.
- Knowledge of at-risk groups and major symptoms are high. However, more than half incorrectly identified children as particularly at risk and there was lower awareness of difficulty breathing and fatigue as symptoms.
- Frontline health workers and municipal officers had the highest perceived risk of being infected with COVID-19, while community leaders, heads of household, and young indigenous women who are former adolescent girl group mentors had the lowest perceived risk. Teachers fell in the middle.
- Respondents stated that TV programs, followed by the President’s announcements and TV advertisements were the most trusted sources of COVID-19 information—a majority get information from TV and radio shows.
- There is mixed knowledge on measures to prevent infection—more awareness on handwashing and masks, compared to social distancing. Indigenous community members may face challenges in adhering to promoted sanitation and hygiene and social distancing guidelines due to a lack of personal water sources, the expense of hand sanitizer, and single-room households.
- Key informants are most worried about infecting other people, followed by COVID-19's potential deadly impact and its impact on livelihoods.
More than 1.5 billion students have to stay at home due to COVID-19 school closures, more than 90 percent of total enrolled learners (UNESCO, 04.01.2020). To ensure learning continuity, students have to study at home. However, it is unclear how the students respond to this challenge and if there is a way to improve their lives. Therefore, we conducted a COVID-19 Rapid Response study among current high school students in Ecuador.
This study evaluates a program that aims to help vulnerable youth aged 15-18 find a job, improve their working conditions, and strengthen their income generation capacity. In order to achieve these goals, the program, which is implemented in four regions of Bolivia, provides youth with soft-skills and vocational training, mentoring, and support in finding a job or starting a business.
In the sprawling informal peripheries of cities throughout the developing world, enhancing state capacity may be critical for an effective COVID response, and hence to macro-level public-health, economic, and political outcomes. In Medellín, Colombia, most neighborhoods are occupied by one of roughly 400 criminal gangs. We have a three-year ongoing study in the city dedicated to understanding and reshaping state and gang rule.
IPA is providing technical support to the Ministry of Education of Peru on designing and analyzing a survey to monitor the implementation of the national remote education strategy under COVID-19 confinement measure. The survey aims to provide actionable information to the MoE on three main dimensions related to parents: (1) information on the strategy, (2) use of the strategy, and (3) areas of support to improve the delivery and take up.
Several governments in LAC are increasingly imposing mandatory quarantines for all citizens to contain the expansion of the COVID-19 pandemic. In Peru, the government is trying to smooth the impact of the shock on the consumption of vulnerable households by providing an emergency cash transfer for the poorest households.
