Includovate is a research incubator that designs solutions to the problems of inequality and exclusion. Includovate was established in 2019 to address an identified gap in the market: namely the development of participatory and innovative methodologies to understand the root causes of social exclusion and to develop change processes to support organizations, sectors and communities to tackle these challenges. Includovate is producing a blog series on how COVID-19 has impacted operations and research in low income countries.
Whilst working across countries and collecting data in low income countries has always been challenging, in the context of COVID-19 it is even more difficult. This blog interviews Includovate’s CEO, Dr Kristie Drucza, about how these changes have impacted the organisation.
“The challenge we are facing is less about survival and more about ethics and leadership. Includovate is committed to ensuring knowledge from low income countries is generated and used to inform policy. However, the funding tap ran dry for a month and this worried us a lot as a firm. It is slowly being turned on again and we hope to pick up new assignments that will help inform COVID-19 relief programs. We have had to let a couple of researchers go which is sad and reduces morale but as a result, we should be able to maintain the rest of our staff.
We are thinking more innovatively than ever before. But it isn’t easy. Firstly, our team are working from home. In many countries where there is fast and reliable internet coverage, working from home isn’t a problem, such as our New Delhi based researchers. However, in low income countries like Kenya and Ethiopia, irregular power supply causes many problems. In Ethiopia the internet is particularly bad, and expensive. This makes connecting remotely and working from home more difficult.
We have put in new structures and reporting lines to manage staff and teamwork remotely. We are having to restructure workloads and responsibilities and the time of our check-in calls based upon internet and power. We have more frequent teleconferences and staff are reporting on their situation and workload daily to their supervisor. We had recently put in some automation processes which was fortunate timing. We are using Zoom for meetings, Microsoft teams, and our SharePoint has recently been set up, making it easier than ever before to collaborate. We established a steering committee from staff volunteers to help make some of the big decisions. The steering committee also helps to communicate their rationale behind certain decisions to other staff”
How Are Your Productivity Levels?
“Definitely productivity is down which is to be expected. We have recently introduced an online time keeping application so we can report and analyse where and how we are spending our time. However this has caused some staff to feel anxious. This introduction coincided with COVID-19 and hence a productivity drop. Aside from communicating messages of support to all staff more frequently, we have set up counselling support for staff. Not all staff want this, but it is great that we can offer this service.”
How Has COVID-19 Affected Your Operations and Research in Low Income Countries?
“On the positive side, I have found that people are communicating better. More early drafts are being shared, people are checking in more often and this makes the technical side of our work even more collaborative. A lot of miscommunication occurs via emails. Those staff who are coping better are the ones that are not afraid to ask a lot of questions and schedule quick check ins and double check the approach they are taking. They brainstorm more and have become more inquisitive. This allows for an exciting iterative engagement process. Similarly, some of our clients are also more interested in co-learning and collaboration. This is fantastic because the more we collaborate the better the research quality, and the more clients learn about research.”
“Everyone is responding individually to the pandemic and so are our clients. Some clients want to wait for a few months in the hope that things return to “normal”. Others require a complete redesign. In some cases, we are pivoting to online data collection methods entirely. This comes with a range of ethical and safeguarding implications. For example, how can we interview children with a disability via the phone? How can we control who is in the room and hence confidentiality? Many people in poor countries do not have smart phones, so Zoom is not an option. Doing research remotely in low-income countries comes with a host of challenges that we are working through.”
“To put things in perspective we are currently collecting data in the following countries: Niger, Burkina Faso, Vietnam, Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Georgia, Ghana, and Bangladesh. Some of these are very poor and our respondents are remote. In some instances, we have found a local person who can move with their smart phone to respondents and in other instances, respondents without reliable internet or a smart phone have moved to an office location where access is given. The restrictions are different within and between countries, so it is not just access but also keeping abreast of constantly changing restrictions. Every project is having to pivot differently depending on the country context and sometimes more than once. Every solution has different ethical challenges, and this can be a bit of a headache to work through. However, we have never been so nimble! I’m really impressed by our team’s ability to be creative and to try new approaches.”
“The degree of redesign of our projects is dependent upon the stage of the research. For those who have already collected the data and only need to analyse and validate, things are easier. For example, we are conducting online Zoom workshops with break-out rooms for discussions and with real time polling to gauge opinions about the findings. This is really exciting and shows that we can travel less and still collaborate and validate. For me this is an opportunity. Very often clients forget to fund a validation process, but this modality is affordable and still effective.”
“We have other projects that require key informant interviews with government officials, and this has been challenging. In some countries civil servants have been asked to take leave without pay and they are understandably concerned by this and do not want to be interviewed about their work at this time. Where government is still operating, it is hard to pin down officials for interviews – they are too busy. Using a telephone to reach people is part of the challenge here. It is harder to build rapport via a phone and it is easier to ignore a phone call than it is to ignore someone’s face. This has been a frustrating experience for our team.
For other projects that were mid-way through when the pandemic hit, we have to wait. This is because half the research has been completed a certain way and cannot be changed now. For example, in Ethiopia we aimed to collect data from 18 woredas through focus group discussions and key informant interviews but only 6 were completed before the ban on social gatherings occurred. Focus group discussions cannot happen for the foreseeable future. We cannot undertake focus group discussions in some woredas and not others because the data will not be comparable. With these kind of mid-way projects, we have to wait till after the pandemic, especially because our team’s and respondent’s safety has to come first.”
“Includovate has an institutional ethical review board that examines all our research. The board is made up of volunteers from different countries and cultures. They help to make sure we design our projects in an ethically responsible manner that maintains the safety of our researchers and respondents. This has always been done remotely. The board receives the submission and reads it separately and then meets via zoom to discuss feedback. This feedback is then collated by the chair and passed back to the lead researcher to fix up. We try to be nimble and our board are meant to respond to the submission within 3 days to avoid delays. This has been maintained so far, except during COVID-19. It is harder for board members to find a time to meet around home schooling, childcare, power and internet connectivity. There was talk from some staff that we should fast track the ethics process so only one person needs to clear the research. I felt that ethics should never be compromised, even if it means our work moves a little more slowly. There is a heavy load on our team and board at the moment because if a research project is redesigned, it has to go through ethics again.”
Where Do You Live and What Is the Government's Response to COVID 19?
“I was living in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia but right now I’m in Kampala, Uganda. The airport closed when I was visiting my spouse with my three children. We are staying in a 2 bedroom temporary apartment until the lockdown lifts. The lockdown in Uganda has been quite strict. There is a ban on public transport, including motorbike passengers, only diplomatic, emergency and special vehicles with a permit can drive. There is a curfew from 7pm until 6am, with only essential food shops and pharmacies allowed to open. Uganda has impressively ‘flattened the curve’ and responded quickly because of their experience with Ebola.”
How Do You Feel About the Future?
“The future is uncertain but creative. We are living up to our name, Includovate, in the way we are pivoting and creating new solutions for data collection. I’m really proud of the way our team is coping to the constant change and uncertainty. New forms of collaboration and more environmentally friendly ways to collect data are emerging and that is exciting.”