Tracking Change in Livelihoods, Service Delivery and Governance
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Researching livelihoods and services affected by conflict Tracking change Nepal China in livelihoods, Bardiya Rolpa Kathmandu Bhutan service delivery Ilam India and governance: Bangladesh Evidence from a 2012–2015 panel survey in Nepal Working Paper 53 Georgina Sturge, Jessica Hagen-Zanker, Gopikesh Acharya, Suman Babu Paudel, Annal Tandukar, Bishnu Upreti and Richard Mallett March 2017 About us Secure Livelihoods Research Consortium (SLRC) aims to generate a stronger evidence base on how people make a living, educate their children, deal with illness and access other basic services in conflict-affected situations. Providing better access to basic services, social protection and support to livelihoods matters for the human welfare of people affected by conflict, the achievement of development targets such as the Sustainable Development Goals and international efforts at peace- and state-building. At the centre of SLRC’s research are three core themes, developed over the course of an intensive one- year inception phase: § State legitimacy: experiences, perceptions and expectations of the state and local governance in conflict-affected situations § State capacity: building effective states that deliver services and social protection in conflict- affected situations § Livelihood trajectories and economic activity under conflict The Overseas Development Institute (ODI) is the lead organisation. SLRC partners include the Centre for Poverty Analysis (CEPA) in Sri Lanka, Feinstein International Center (FIC, Tufts University), the Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit (AREU), the Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI) in Pakistan, Disaster Studies of Wageningen University (WUR) in the Netherlands, the Nepal Centre for Contemporary Research (NCCR), and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Secure Livelihoods Research Consortium SLRC Working Papers present information, analysis and key policy Overseas Development Institute recommendations on issues relating to livelihoods, basic services 203 Blackfriars Road and social protection in conflict affected situations. London SE1 8NJ United Kingdom This and other SLRC reports are available from www.securelivelihoods.org. Funded by UK aid from the UK government, Irish Aid and the EC. T +44 (0)20 3817 0031 E [email protected] Disclaimer: The views presented in this report are those of the W www.securelivelihoods.org author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the UK government’s official policies or represent the views of Irish Aid, the EC, SLRC or our partners. © SLRC 2017 Readers are encouraged to quote or reproduce material from SLRC Working Papers for their own publications. As copyright holder, SLRC requests due acknowledgement and a copy of the publication. 2 Contents About us 2 Preface 5 Acknowledgements 6 Acronyms and abbreviations 7 Executive summary 8 1 Introduction 10 2 Background, objectives and analytical frameworks 11 2.1 Situating the survey within the research programme 11 2.2 How the panel survey fits into this research agenda 12 2.3 Analytical frameworks 12 3 Methodology 16 3.1 Design process 16 3.2 Data collection 18 3.3 Sampling and weighting for non-response 19 3.4 Analytical methods 20 3.5 Outline of key variables 21 4 Description of sampled locations and changes in context 22 4.1 Shocks 22 4.2 Political changes and concerns 24 4.3 Migration of respondents 25 5 Changing livelihoods and wellbeing 26 5.1 Livelihood activities 26 5.2 Food security 27 5.3 Asset wealth 30 5.4 Debt/loans 31 5.5 Migration, remittances and displacement 32 5.6 Key findings on changes in livelihoods and wellbeing 33 6 Changes in basic services, social protection and livelihood assistance 35 6.1 Changes in access 35 6.2 Changes in satisfaction 42 6.3 Key findings on changes in basic services, social protection and livelihood assistance 45 7 Changes in perceptions of government 47 7.1 Civic participation 47 7.2 Changes in perceptions of local government 48 7.3 Changes in perceptions of central government 50 7.4 Key findings on changes in perception of government 52 3 8 Summary of findings and conclusion 55 8.1 Changes in people’s livelihoods and wellbeing 55 8.2 Changes in basic services, social protection and livelihood assistance 56 8.3 Changes in perceptions of government 56 9 References 58 Appendix 1: Full sampling and weighting methods 63 Wave 1 63 Wave 2 63 Appendix 2: Full analytical methods 65 Fixed and Random Effects models 65 Deciding which model to use 67 Appendix 3: List of social protection and livelihood assistance programmes 69 Tables Table 1: Composition of coping strategies index, from survey instrument. 13 Table 2: Attrition by VDC 19 Table 3: Summary of outcome variables 21 Table 4: Changes in Coping Strategies Index and Food Consumption Score 28 Table 5: Migration at the household level 32 Table 6: Changes in service and service provider 35 Table 7: Change in access to basic services 36 Table 8: Access to social protection or livelihood assistance across the two waves 37 Table 9: Receiving social protection transfers by sex of household head 37 Table 10: Change in journey time to the school, by VDC 39 Table 11: Payment of school fees over time, by school provider 40 Table 12: School attendance over time, by school provider 40 Table 13: Changes in satisfaction with basic services over time 43 Table 14: Problems and knowledge of participatory procedures 47 Table 15: Changes in perceptions of local government 49 Table 16: Changes in perceptions of central government 51 Table 17: Perceptions of government by sex of respondent 51 Table 18: Perceptions of central government, by wave and respondent ethnicity 52 Table 19: Social protection 69 Table 20: Livelihood assistance 70 Figures Figure 1: Shocks experienced by the household between 2012 and 2015 24 Figure 2: Households engaging in particular livelihood activities, by wave 26 Figure 3: Changes in average wealth (MSI score) over time, by ethnic group 31 Figure 4: Average journey time and changes in journey time by service sector (+/- 5 minutes counted as ‘no change’) 36 Figure 5: Perceptions of local government by wave 49 Figure 6: Perceptions of central government by wave 50 Figure 7: An illustrated example of the difference between FE and RE models. 67 4 Preface As a multi-year, cross-country research programme, one of the overarching aims of the Secure Livelihoods Research Consortium (SLRC) is to contribute towards a better understanding of what processes of livelihood recovery and state-building look like following periods of conflict and how positive outcomes are achieved. Understanding socioeconomic change of this nature is possible only when appropriate evidence exists. This, in turn, requires the availability of reliable longitudinal data that are able to measure shifts, fluctuations and consistencies in the performance of a given unit of analysis (e.g., an individual, a household, an economy) against a set of outcome indicators between at least two points in time. With a six-year timeframe, SLRC is well placed to contribute to understanding how livelihood recovery and state-building unfold over time. To this end, the Consortium has conducted original panel surveys in five countries: the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Uganda. In two other countries, Afghanistan and South Sudan, we are following a slightly different process by tagging on to planned or existing panel surveys. Two rounds of data collection took place between 2012 and 2015. Despite the difficult circumstances in which the survey teams worked – all of them either fragile or conflict-affected – the research teams in all countries managed to find six out of every seven people they sought to re-interview in 2015. Out of a total of 9,767 respondents interviewed in the cross-country programme in the first round, 8,404 were re-interviewed in the second. The initial sample sizes were inflated to allow for attrition so that, even with some respondents not interviewed, the sample remains representative at a specific administrative or geographical level in each country at the time of the first round and is statistically significant. All told, the SLRC panel presents an opportunity to go beyond cross-sectional analysis, generating information about changes in the sample over time and the specific trajectories that individuals and their households have followed. More specifically, the surveys are designed to generate information about changes over time in: § People’s livelihoods (income-generating activities, asset portfolios, food security, constraining and enabling factors within the broader institutional and geographical context) § Their access to and satisfaction with basic services (education, health, water), social protection and livelihoods assistance § Their relationships with governance processes and actors (participation in public meetings, experience with grievance mechanisms, perceptions of major political actors). Undertaking a cross-country, comparative panel survey at the individual level in difficult environments is not a straightforward exercise. This means that such research has limitations. In our case there are two major limitations that we highlight below. The first was raised in the original baseline reports: In conducting a survey there is a trade-off between collecting information that is comparable across countries and rephrasing each survey question entirely to fit the country context. The second limitation is specifically related to the longitudinal nature of our analysis this time around. Panel