Below is a conversation between Holly Christofferson, Plan’s senior technical advisor for Youth & Economic Empowerment, who has more than 20 years of program implementation experience, and Lorie Broomhall, senior MERL advisor with 20 years of research and M&E experience. Both have worked in development throughout Africa, Asia and Latin America, and are currently partnering on two projects in South East Asia on forced labor and trafficking in persons in the fishing industry.
Holly: Months ago, when I got a mailer about the U.S. Census, I quickly filled it out online to avoid a knock at my door from a census worker. I dread having to answer personal questions from a stranger, even though the census data is vital and, hopefully, will be used to inform important decisions about resource allocation in my community.
Living under the threat of COVID-19 transmission adds another compelling reason to limit interactions and not answer the knock at the door. So, when an Economic Security Needs Assessment crossed my desk for review, I couldn’t help but think about how I would feel if confronted by an official-looking person at my door during the COVID-19 pandemic who wanted to ask me 11 pages worth of detailed and personal questions. I would opt out. Thanks, but no thank you.
Lorie: I wholeheartedly agree with your frustration with intrusive needs assessments! I am sad to say I have often seen this kind of exploitative behavior imposed on survey and interview participants. Not only are these dubious practices bad science, but they are also prime examples of how well-meaning, but insensitive, researchers and program staff can intrude on people’s privacy and take up too much of their time. For instance, it is all too common for respondents to endure hours-long survey interviews with questions that have little to do with the purpose of the assessment or study, based on the idea that asking too many questions is better than not asking enough.
Holly: You’re right. For decades, the international development community has been putting people at risk and living in poverty on the spot to participate in just these kinds of well-intentioned needs assessments and surveys. Whether out of basic politeness and a desire to not say no to a visitor/guest, unequal power dynamics of the official-looking male enumerator and the female respondent who doesn’t feel she can say no, or weighing the cost/benefit of potential future opportunities as a result of participation in the survey, poor people continue to consent to these assessments.
Lorie: In many cases, participants put up with these impositions not because they expect to be rewarded in any way, but more likely because they believe they can do some good for their community, or offer their knowledge to help program staff better understand their concerns and help them solve their problems.
Holly: People’s time has value. If we are taking up their time, especially poor people right now who are scrambling during this pandemic to keep their families fed, safe and healthy, then they should be compensated for that time. If we had to pay respondents per question they answered, we might quickly start to prioritize just the essential questions, and create a minimum viable assessment. The costly survey line item in the research budget would check the appetites of overzealous data collectors. It would also help to make the power dynamic between the enumerator and the respondent a bit more even.
The development community harvests a vast amount of personal information on households from communities around the globe. No doubt that amassing troves of personal information would be nice to have and potentially useful for disaster relief and development programs, but is it right, fair and ethical to collect?
Lorie: That’s an important question, Holly. When people with less means give up their time and privacy to interviewers they often receive nothing, or next to nothing, in return. They almost never receive monetary compensation, but instead get air time on their phones, or a snack and a bottle of soda. Some will justify this practice by saying the government won’t let them pay respondents (doubtful), or they can’t afford to pay (then you can’t afford the research), or they don’t want to start a bidding war with other development agencies (why not? That’s capitalism!).
Holly: I would argue that we should only collect the most essential information needed to make specific programmatic decisions that will directly benefit the individuals and households being surveyed. When possible, information should be gathered from a desk review of previous studies.
Lorie: Back in 2002, the World Health Organization published research ethics standards based on the Council for International Organizations of Medical Science’s (CIOM) International Ethical Guidelines for Biomedical Research Involving Human Subjects. These standards are based on the four ethical principles that should be applied to all research involving human subjects. They are:
- Respect for persons: All people should be treated as autonomous individuals worthy of respect.
- Beneficence: Researchers have an ethical obligation to maximize benefits and to minimize possible harms and wrongs.
- Non-Maleficence, or do no harm: Researchers guard against harming participants whether it be physical, mental or emotional.
- Justice: This principle is based on the “rules of distributive justice” in which the group that bears the burden or research also reaps the benefits.
In reality, the knowledge participants give us to inform programs or answer important assessment questions is far more valuable than what we pay them, if we even do. We should show more humility and gratitude. Show respect and stop asking 20 questions when three will do. Try to make the information gleaned meaningful by disseminating and using it. And finally, we should be even less willing to waste their time than we are our own. As Holly points out, the COVID-19 pandemic has massively disrupted poor people’s ability to support and protect themselves and their families, making these ethical principles even more important to follow.
This is the second article in a series that examines MERL during COVID-19. In our next issue, we will feature the Tusome Pamoja Endline Assessment, currently being carried out in Tanzania. For this exercise, we are conducting a survey with 1,190 parents of Grade 2 students and 33 focus group discussions with parents, teachers and community engagement mobilizers, all using mobile phones. We’ll tell you about the successes and not-so-successes, as well as the tips and techniques we discovered to improve results — and what we have learned that we’ll keep after the COVID-19 pandemic is over.
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