Publication: One Year in the Pandemic: Results from the High-Frequency Phone Surveys for Refugees in Uganda
Loading...
Published
2021-06-28
ISSN
Date
2021-08-16
Author(s)
Editor(s)
Abstract
The URHFPS tracks the socioeconomic impacts of the COVID-19 crisis on refugees. The World Bank (WB) in collaboration with the Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS) and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) launched and conducted the URHFPS. The URHFPS tracked the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic between October 2020 and March 2021. This brief discusses key selected results while providing policy options. Where possible and appropriate, findings are compared to Ugandans by using the national High-Frequency Phone Survey (UHFPS) conducted by UBOS with the support from the World Bank since June 2020.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“Beltramo, Theresa; Atamanov, Aziz; Reese, Benjamin Christopher; Rios Rivera, Laura Abril; Waita, Peter. 2021. One Year in the Pandemic: Results from the High-Frequency Phone Surveys for Refugees in Uganda. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/36127 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
Digital Object Identifier
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication Understanding the Socioeconomic Differences of Urban and Camp-Based Refugees in Kenya(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021)The comparative analysis on the socioeconomic conditions of urban and camp-based refugees in Kenya builds upon the findings of the Kalobeyei, Kakuma and Urban Socioeconomic Surveys (SES). It offers an analytical understanding about key differences between refugees while providing explanations, and policy recommendations.Publication The Socioeconomic Impacts of COVID-19 on Households in Cambodia, Report No. 1(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-11)This brief summarizes the findings of the first round of a nationally representative high-frequency phone survey (HFPS) of households. The HFPS sample is drawn from the nationally representative living standard measurement study plus (LSMS+) implemented October to December 2019 by the National Institute of Statistics (NIS) with technical and financial support from the World Bank. The HFPS followed up with 1,364 households in LSMS+ with a phone number. The phone survey was successfully completed for 700 households for a response rate of 51 percent. Sampling weights were adjusted to ensure that the sample remains representative at the national and subnational level (urban and rural areas). The same households will be tracked over 10 months, with selected respondents - typically the household head - completing interviews every 8 weeks. Monitoring the well-being of households over time will improve understanding of the effects of, and household responses to the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic in near-real time.Publication The Socioeconomic Impacts of COVID-19 on Households in Cambodia, Report No. 2(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-11)This brief summarizes the findings of round 2 (R2) of the high-frequency phone survey (HFPS) of households. The information presented is based on a sample of 1,667 households, of which 612 were drawn from the nationally representative living standard measurement study plus (LSMS+) and 1,055 from the list of beneficiaries of the conditional cash transfer program for pregnant women and children under 2 with an IDPoor equity card (IDPoor sample). IDPoor is Cambodia’s national poverty identification program and official targeting mechanism for programs that support the poor. Unless otherwise noted, the results presented are primarily drawn from the LSMS sample. The results of R2 implemented August to September 2020 are compared against results of round 1 (R1) implemented May to June 2020 to trace the evolution of key indicators. The same households will be tracked over 10 months, with selected respondents - typically the household head - completing interviews every 8 weeks. Monitoring the well-being of households over time will improve understanding of the effects of, and household responses to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic in near-real time.Publication Gendered Impacts of the COVID-19 Crisis in Uganda and Opportunities for an Inclusive and Sustainable Recovery(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022)As Uganda builds back from the COVID-19 shock, the Ugandan government is strengthening its commitment to a more gender-inclusive and sustainable economy. This report supports these efforts by describing the gendered impacts of COVID-19 and provides recommendations for Ugandan policy makers and World Bank Group operations to ensure women’s participation in an inclusive and sustainable recovery. It presents gender-disaggregated data from three main sources: (1) high-frequency phone surveys that track the impacts of the COVID-19 shock: one of Ugandan nationals conducted in June and one of refugees conducted in November 2020; (2) interviews with 28 representatives of government institutions, development partners, and women’s organizations in Kampala and in rural areas; and (3) a review of relevant policy and gray literature on climate change, the green economy, and women’s economic empowerment. The report is structured in five sections: introduction in chapter one, chapter two describes the methodology and guiding questions. Chapter three gives an overview of Uganda’s policy environment for women’s economic empowerment and green growth. Chapter four covers the impacts of the COVID-19 crisis on women, their coping mechanisms, and their sources of resilience. The analysis is broken down by sex, age, geography, and refugee status to describe the impacts of the COVID-19 shock across select subgroups. Chapter five identifies opportunities for Uganda to pursue a more gender-inclusive and green recovery, and concludes by offering policy recommendations.Publication Welfare and Distributional Impacts of Inflation and the COVID-19 Outbreak in the Islamic Republic of Iran(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-03)This paper simulates the welfare and poverty impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic in the Islamic Republic of Iran, emphasizing the role of inflation, which lowered the purchasing power of households and had heterogeneous impacts across the distribution and in different regions of the country. First, income losses are estimated with a microsimulation analysis based on shock scenarios. Second, combining data on price changes with expenditure baskets for various groups of households, group-specific price indices are calculated. These are then applied to the post-shock income changes to assess the deterioration of living standards associated with inflation. Poverty substantially increases, by up to 21 percentage points, as a combined result of the fall in household incomes and high inflation through the pandemic. Iranians in the bottom half of the welfare distribution, those working in services and high-contact economic sectors, and those in rural areas are disproportionately affected.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication Panama Poverty and Equity Assessment 2024(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-02-12)Panama has been one of the fastest-growing countries in the region, with rapid economic expansion accompanied by significant poverty reduction. Driven by public and private investment as well as labor accumulation, the Panamanian economy grew by an annual average of 5.7 percent between 1990 and 2023, much higher than the regional average of 2.5 percent. This growth contributed to a significant reduction in poverty. Using the poverty line of US$6.85 per day per capita (2017 PPP), the share of Panamanians affected by poverty improved from one in two in 1989 to only one in ten lived in 2023. Nevertheless, Panama remains one of the most unequal countries in the world. While poverty in urban areas was 4.8 percent in 2023, poverty in indigenous regions (comarcas) reached 76 percent—15 times higher. Limited progress in reducing inequality, as measured by the Gini coefficient, contrasts with Panama’s achievements in other areas. Globally, Panama ranked 11th in inequality in 2000, with a Gini coefficient of 53.8. Two decades later, it ranked 8th, with a Gini coefficient of 50.9 as of 2022. This report examines Panama’s achievements and challenges in reducing poverty and inequality to inform policy options. With a special focus on the 2008–2023 period the report documents progress in poverty and equity in recent decades, highlighting access to basic services, expansion of quality jobs, improvement of human capital, and promotion of household resilience as critical policy priorities.Publication Poverty and Equity Assessment for El Salvador 2024(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-12-12)This report proposes an agenda for building on gains to re-accelerate poverty reduction among Salvadorans. The last World Bank Poverty Assessment for El Salvador, from 2015, proposed two key policy recommendations: (a) effective pro-poor spending and (b) reduction of crime and violence through better access to jobs and education. Nine years later, the authorities have managed to achieve a substantial reduction in crime and violence and have indicated an intent to build on such progress to establish a path toward an El Salvador where shared prosperity is achievable. In this report, we propose a three pillar structure to address poverty and inequality reduction: jobs, services, and social protection, with a cross-cutting set of primary conditions that articulates this structure.Publication Digital Africa(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-03-13)All African countries need better and more jobs for their growing populations. "Digital Africa: Technological Transformation for Jobs" shows that broader use of productivity-enhancing, digital technologies by enterprises and households is imperative to generate such jobs, including for lower-skilled people. At the same time, it can support not only countries’ short-term objective of postpandemic economic recovery but also their vision of economic transformation with more inclusive growth. These outcomes are not automatic, however. Mobile internet availability has increased throughout the continent in recent years, but Africa’s uptake gap is the highest in the world. Areas with at least 3G mobile internet service now cover 84 percent of Africa’s population, but only 22 percent uses such services. And the average African business lags in the use of smartphones and computers as well as more sophisticated digital technologies that catalyze further productivity gains. Two issues explain the usage gap: affordability of these new technologies and willingness to use them. For the 40 percent of Africans below the extreme poverty line, mobile data plans alone would cost one-third of their incomes—in addition to the price of access devices, apps, and electricity. Data plans for small- and medium-size businesses are also more expensive than in other regions. Moreover, shortcomings in the quality of internet services—and in the supply of attractive, skills-appropriate apps that promote entrepreneurship and raise earnings—dampen people’s willingness to use them. For those countries already using these technologies, the development payoffs are significant. New empirical studies for this report add to the rapidly growing evidence that mobile internet availability directly raises enterprise productivity, increases jobs, and reduces poverty throughout Africa. To realize these and other benefits more widely, Africa’s countries must implement complementary and mutually reinforcing policies to strengthen both consumers’ ability to pay and willingness to use digital technologies. These interventions must prioritize productive use to generate large numbers of inclusive jobs in a region poised to benefit from a massive, youthful workforce—one projected to become the world’s largest by the end of this century.Publication Mobility and Development Periodical, Fall 2024(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-10-01)The fourth edition of the Mobility and Development periodical presents nine stories of how countries have evolved transport sector innovations, policy reform, and technical solutions to improve the quality of life. Opening with big data readiness for urban transport in Latin America, the narrative zooms out to present the potential of drones in the region. After unpacking the fiscal risks of the transport sector, experts unpack pressing urban mobility challenges. Dhaka offers an example of how critical governance can help metropolitan transit agencies deliver value. Keeping inclusion in focus, the next article shows how effective public transportation can boost economic opportunities for women in Middle East and North Africa. Moving to the Europe and Central Asia region offers a perspective of how improved roads influence jobs in rural Armenia. Travelling to Pakistan, authors discuss how to accelerate electric mobility adoption. The final article shows how an economic corridor approach to harness lithium could transform Argentina’s northwest.Publication Poverty and Shared Prosperity 2022(Washington, DC : World Bank, 2022)Poverty and Shared Prosperity 2022: Correcting Course provides the first comprehensive analysis of the pandemic’s toll on poverty in developing countries. It identifies how governments can optimize fiscal policy to help correct course. Fiscal policies offset the impact of COVID-19 on poverty in many high-income countries, but those policies offset barely one quarter of the pandemic’s impact in low-income countries and lower-middle-income countries. Improving support to households as crises continue will require reorienting protective spending away from generally regressive and inefficient subsidies and toward a direct transfer support system—a first key priority. Reorienting fiscal spending toward supporting growth is a second key priority identified by the report. Some of the highest-value public spending often pays out decades later. Amid crises, it is difficult to protect such investments, but it is essential to do so. Finally, it is not enough just to spend wisely - when additional revenue does need to be mobilized, it must be done in a way that minimizes reductions in poor people’s incomes. The report highlights how exploring underused forms of progressive taxation and increasing the efficiency of tax collection can help in this regard. Poverty and Shared Prosperity is a biennial series that reports on global trends in poverty and shared prosperity. Each report also explores a central challenge to poverty reduction and boosting shared prosperity, assessing what works well and what does not in different settings. By bringing together the latest evidence, this corporate flagship report provides a foundation for informed advocacy around ending extreme poverty and improving the lives of the poorest in every country in the world. For more information, please visit worldbank.org/poverty-and-shared-prosperity.