Women Empowerment, Social Norms and Domestic Violence
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Oxford
Department Name: Blavatnik School of Government
Abstract
Domestic violence (DV) affects 30% of women worldwide and more than 50% of women living in conflict or post-conflict communities. The prevention of DV is important, not only because it is a violation of women's rights and freedoms, but also because DV negatively affects economic growth and perpetuates structural poverty. An important mechanism driving this effect is the interaction between DV and low cooperation between spouses, resulting in less than optimal health, education and economic outcomes. This dynamic is exacerbated in conflict-affected zones, where household cooperation is essential for post-conflict recovery. The aim of this project is to better understand how to design effective and efficient interventions aimed at reducing DV, especially among vulnerable groups in conflict-affected areas. Our research advances goal three of the ESRC-DFID Joint fund for poverty alleviation research: 'What measures can be taken to reduce the risks and impact of violence and instability on the poorest and increase the effectiveness of peace-building, state-building and wider development interventions in fragile and conflict-affected situations?'
In order to design interventions to reduce DV that actually work, it is necessary to understand the specific factors driving it. To date, research on DV interventions has only provided preliminary and often contradictory evidence. Our project aims to substantially advance our understanding of DV, its causes and how interventions can better reduce it. We will accomplish this by addressing two questions:
Question 1: To what extent do different factors affect the prevalence of domestic violence?
Previous research has identified various factors that influence the occurrence of DV such as the husbands' psychological traits, women's resistance and acceptance of DV, women's income earning opportunities, social norms about DV and the level of women's empowerment. The extent to which each individual factor influences DV is, however, unknown.
Question 2: How do the interactions between the different factors drive DV and influence household cooperation and multidimensional poverty, especially for vulnerable groups?
These questions will be answered by studying several DV interventions implemented in 120 rural communities in Egypt by Oxfam Novib. Egypt is chosen because it is one of the few post-conflict countries where several DV interventions are being implemented simultaneously, allowing us to test the effect of all factors. These include interventions with the following objectives:
- Empowering women, by changing their beliefs about their rights and the acceptability of violence.
- Changing men's attitudes and social norms about DV.
- Changing women's economic opportunities through the provision of microcredit.
In each community a sub-section of the population will receive an intervention and participate, with their spouse, in a base- and end-line survey. They will also participate in experiments where they make decision about allocating resources to measure bargaining power of the spouses and the level of cooperation in the household. Through these experiments we will be able to develop new tools to measure DV and women's empowerment.
The main impact objective of our research is to reduce the prevalence of DV, enhance household cooperation and multidimensional household outcomes, and reduce structural poverty in low-income households in LIC's and other developing countries, especially in conflict or post-conflict areas. Our research will enable policy-makers and NGOs to design more effective and efficient DV interventions targeted at specific vulnerable groups. It will also provide evidence on the scale, causes and consequences of DV. This includes the effect of DV on enhancing household cooperation and multidimensional household outcomes, and reducing structural poverty. These results will be used to enhance the lobby for government and donor support to DV interventions.
In order to design interventions to reduce DV that actually work, it is necessary to understand the specific factors driving it. To date, research on DV interventions has only provided preliminary and often contradictory evidence. Our project aims to substantially advance our understanding of DV, its causes and how interventions can better reduce it. We will accomplish this by addressing two questions:
Question 1: To what extent do different factors affect the prevalence of domestic violence?
Previous research has identified various factors that influence the occurrence of DV such as the husbands' psychological traits, women's resistance and acceptance of DV, women's income earning opportunities, social norms about DV and the level of women's empowerment. The extent to which each individual factor influences DV is, however, unknown.
Question 2: How do the interactions between the different factors drive DV and influence household cooperation and multidimensional poverty, especially for vulnerable groups?
These questions will be answered by studying several DV interventions implemented in 120 rural communities in Egypt by Oxfam Novib. Egypt is chosen because it is one of the few post-conflict countries where several DV interventions are being implemented simultaneously, allowing us to test the effect of all factors. These include interventions with the following objectives:
- Empowering women, by changing their beliefs about their rights and the acceptability of violence.
- Changing men's attitudes and social norms about DV.
- Changing women's economic opportunities through the provision of microcredit.
In each community a sub-section of the population will receive an intervention and participate, with their spouse, in a base- and end-line survey. They will also participate in experiments where they make decision about allocating resources to measure bargaining power of the spouses and the level of cooperation in the household. Through these experiments we will be able to develop new tools to measure DV and women's empowerment.
The main impact objective of our research is to reduce the prevalence of DV, enhance household cooperation and multidimensional household outcomes, and reduce structural poverty in low-income households in LIC's and other developing countries, especially in conflict or post-conflict areas. Our research will enable policy-makers and NGOs to design more effective and efficient DV interventions targeted at specific vulnerable groups. It will also provide evidence on the scale, causes and consequences of DV. This includes the effect of DV on enhancing household cooperation and multidimensional household outcomes, and reducing structural poverty. These results will be used to enhance the lobby for government and donor support to DV interventions.
Planned Impact
Our main impact objective is to reduce the prevalence of domestic violence (DV), improve household cooperation and multidimensional household outcomes, and to reduce structural poverty in low-income households in LIC's and other developing countries, especially in conflict or post-conflict areas. Low-income households, and vulnerable women in Egypt in particular, will be directly impacted by participating in DV interventions. Indirectly, the impact will be achieved by improving our understanding of 'what works' in terms of DV interventions by Oxfam Novib in the short term, and other development organizations in the medium to long term. This will be achieved by:
- Involving a range of key-stakeholders in a five-day workshop at the start of the project, hosted by the American University in Cairo (AUC);
- The collaborative development of the research design and instruments with Oxfam and their local partners;
- Two policy papers, one improving Oxfam's theory of change, one focusing on measurement tools for measuring DV prevalence and women empowerment;
- Policy conferences;
- The incorporation of the results of our study in Oxfam's own educational entertainment intervention targeted at reducing DV.
The second impact objective is to enhance the lobby for government and donor support to DV interventions by providing evidence about the link between the reduction of DV, household cooperation and alleviation of structural poverty. We aim to achieve this by writing a policy brief and blog post, which will be distributed to organizations involved in advocacy on DV. We will give specific attention to advocacy to the Egyptian government by involving them in research, starting from the key-stakeholder workshop held at the beginning of the project. The third impact objective is to raise awareness about DV in Egypt and to increase public support for social change. This will be achieved by involving Egyptian practitioners working on DV, such as representatives from hospitals, Egyptian police and women's groups in the research. Secondly, before data collection starts, we will organize meetings with village leaders to request support for the research. Thirdly, field staff will be trained to increase their knowledge about DV, local legislation and referral systems that exist for women experiencing DV. Finally, the educational entertainment programme will be made available to the larger Egyptian general public. The final impact objective is to raise awareness among the general public in the Netherlands and United Kingdom about the widespread prevalence of DV globally, and to increase public support for DV interventions in developing countries through involving the national press.
The academic impact of our research centers on the development of a theoretical model of DV prevalence, which will help us to understand and test, through an RCT combined with framed-field experiments, the causal mechanisms driving changes in DV, household cooperation and outcomes. So far this has been a main challenge for DV researchers. The study will produce three academic papers focusing on the impact of the RCT treatment arms, heterogeneous impacts on vulnerable groups and the impact of reduction of DV on household outcomes and structural poverty more generally. Next to DV researchers, the research will also benefit academics evaluating policy interventions targeted at low-income households in developing countries, especially because it will provide a critical step towards disentangling mechanisms driving impact. Academics in the field of family economics will benefit because our research will address a range of causal mechanisms that are applicable to the developing country context. A unique dataset will be produced that will be made publicly available at the UK Data Service. The research will be disseminated through research papers, the multidisciplinary scientific advisory committee, blog posts, and presentations at academic conferences.
- Involving a range of key-stakeholders in a five-day workshop at the start of the project, hosted by the American University in Cairo (AUC);
- The collaborative development of the research design and instruments with Oxfam and their local partners;
- Two policy papers, one improving Oxfam's theory of change, one focusing on measurement tools for measuring DV prevalence and women empowerment;
- Policy conferences;
- The incorporation of the results of our study in Oxfam's own educational entertainment intervention targeted at reducing DV.
The second impact objective is to enhance the lobby for government and donor support to DV interventions by providing evidence about the link between the reduction of DV, household cooperation and alleviation of structural poverty. We aim to achieve this by writing a policy brief and blog post, which will be distributed to organizations involved in advocacy on DV. We will give specific attention to advocacy to the Egyptian government by involving them in research, starting from the key-stakeholder workshop held at the beginning of the project. The third impact objective is to raise awareness about DV in Egypt and to increase public support for social change. This will be achieved by involving Egyptian practitioners working on DV, such as representatives from hospitals, Egyptian police and women's groups in the research. Secondly, before data collection starts, we will organize meetings with village leaders to request support for the research. Thirdly, field staff will be trained to increase their knowledge about DV, local legislation and referral systems that exist for women experiencing DV. Finally, the educational entertainment programme will be made available to the larger Egyptian general public. The final impact objective is to raise awareness among the general public in the Netherlands and United Kingdom about the widespread prevalence of DV globally, and to increase public support for DV interventions in developing countries through involving the national press.
The academic impact of our research centers on the development of a theoretical model of DV prevalence, which will help us to understand and test, through an RCT combined with framed-field experiments, the causal mechanisms driving changes in DV, household cooperation and outcomes. So far this has been a main challenge for DV researchers. The study will produce three academic papers focusing on the impact of the RCT treatment arms, heterogeneous impacts on vulnerable groups and the impact of reduction of DV on household outcomes and structural poverty more generally. Next to DV researchers, the research will also benefit academics evaluating policy interventions targeted at low-income households in developing countries, especially because it will provide a critical step towards disentangling mechanisms driving impact. Academics in the field of family economics will benefit because our research will address a range of causal mechanisms that are applicable to the developing country context. A unique dataset will be produced that will be made publicly available at the UK Data Service. The research will be disseminated through research papers, the multidisciplinary scientific advisory committee, blog posts, and presentations at academic conferences.
Organisations
- University of Oxford (Lead Research Organisation)
- Punjab Social Protection Authority (PSPA) (Collaboration)
- Bedari (Collaboration)
- Oxfam International (Collaboration)
- Indus Resource Center (Collaboration)
- Center for Economic Research (Collaboration)
- Oxfam Novib (Collaboration, Project Partner)
- Wereld Natuur Fonds-Nederland (WWF Netherlands) (Collaboration)
Publications
Schoenmaker, F.
(2019)
Child marriage, poverty, and education
Van Laarhoven, Y.
(2019)
What is the effect of Social Norms on Early marriage in Pakistan
| Title | Two short films on girls' education and early marriage |
| Description | The research team contributed to the development of two short (soap opera-type) films on girls' education and early marriage: one to be shown through mobile cinema events in Sindh province and one for South Punjab province. Initial draft scripts were developed by Oxfam Pakistan and partners IRC and Bedari. Subsequently, the research team gave detailed inputs and suggestions to strengthen the scripts, deepen their alignment with Oxfam's theory of change and avoid unintended implicit messages. Finalized scripts were enacted and filmed by local theater groups. |
| Type Of Art | Film/Video/Animation |
| Year Produced | 2018 |
| Impact | The mobile cinema events were carried out in both Sindh and South Punjab provinces. Immediate impacts on attendants' feelings, perceptions and attitudes were recorded through the exit surveys (see Research Methods and Tools). Longer-term impacts were captured in the endline surveys of the RCT. Once we use the endline data to measure impacts, we will share these results widely with researchers and practitioners. |
| Description | Our research program aimed to understand to what extent edutainment targeted at men, at women, or at both jointly, changes attitudes, beliefs, norms, and behavior surrounding child marriage and education for girls. There is little rigorous evidence to date on which gender to target for enhanced program effectiveness, despite this question's high societal relevance in view of the continuously high child marriage rates across the world. We conducted a cluster-randomized control trial in 177 rural villages in Pakistan. The intervention we evaluated - developed jointly with our implementing partners in Pakistan - consisted of mobile cinema screenings followed by structured group discussions, and another group discussion in a subsequent visit. The villages received a baseline survey encompassing approximately 1,700 households (more than 5,000 individuals) in 2019 prior to intervention, an endline starting early 2020 after intervention delivery and just prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, and a follow-up endline survey at the end of 2020 to help understand the impacts of COVID-19. In each wave of data collection, we interviewed both male and female caregivers as well as adolescent girls and boys. We also developed a new lab-in-the-field experiment to elicit these individuals' beliefs and preferences for investments in the adolescent child. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, endline data management and analysis has been slower than envisaged. As a result, only preliminary findings are available upon closing of the project. These findings are indicative of significant effects of the edutainment interventions on attitudes and norms of the study population. Notably, both fathers and mothers significantly revised their opinions about the best age for girls to get married; and caregivers and adolescents alike changed their attitudes towards the best age for girls to leave school. In-depth insights into the differential effects of targeting men, women or both, are expected soon. The research team is highly committed to continue working on the data analysis, manuscript writing and dissemination beyond the end date of the funding. An unexpected opportunity arose as we were able to follow-up with our study participants almost one year after the original endline and well into the COVID-19 pandemic. Whereas global evidence abounds that the resulting economic hardships have had devastating consequences for early marriage rates, our follow-up endline survey will allow us to investigate whether the edutainment intervention has been able to shield the most vulnerable populations in poor traditional villages from these negative pressures. Results will be disseminated as soon as available. |
| Exploitation Route | Our research outcomes will be submitted for publication in international peer-reviewed journals, be presented at international development and/or health economics conferences and invited seminars, and be further disseminated through social media (Twitter, blog posts). Non-academic dissemination will consist of various policy briefs that summarize key findings for non-academic audiences, workshops with our implementing partners in The Netherlands (Oxfam Novib) and Pakistan (Oxfam Pakistan, IRC, Baahn Belli), and dissemination and sense-making sessions with local stakeholders in Pakistan - most notably the Pakistan Social Protection Authority, with whom we have a formal partnership. In addition, the research team is contributing to an international learning document by Oxfam Novib, which summarizes the learnings from child marriage interventions in five countries and will be shared with Oxfam's country offices across the globe. Other non-academic dissemination activities will include presentations at policy conferences and knowledge-sharing networks such as Share-Net International. |
| Sectors | Communities and Social Services/Policy,Education,Healthcare |
| Description | During our close collaboration over the past three years with our non-academic partners Oxfam Novib, Oxfam Pakistan, IRC, Bedari and Baahn Belli, we have already contributed considerably to local capacity-building with respect to monitoring and evaluation capacity within these implementing organisations (e.g. improving their M&E systems; detailing their theory of change and pathways to impact; further refining the curricula of their interventions and the logical frameworks) and to strengthening their internal research capacity (e.g. in terms of understanding the rationale, design and interpretation of randomized controlled trials; and developing qualitative research tools). We have also directly contributed to the development of movie scripts addressing norms on gender, marriage and education, which our partners can re-use and adapt to other local contexts. Our study also improved understanding among our implementing partners about the characteristics, needs, beliefs and attitudes of their target population, which in turn will facilitate the development of new interventions. Finally, we have shared preliminary impact findings from the 2020 endline survey (completed just prior to the COVID-19 pandemic) with Oxfam Novib and Oxfam Pakistan, who are incorporating the results in their future programme endeavors. Moreover, these preliminary findings will be included in the "Edutainment for reducing child marriage"-learning document that Oxfam Novib is writing on their learnings and evaluations of edutainment interventions in five low- and middle-income countries across the globe. Our impact evaluation will show whether the edutainment interventions not only positively affected social norms, attitudes and beliefs about early marriage and education, but also changed actual practices, as well as improving the health, well-being and quality of life of the adolescent girls and boys in the treated villages. Moreover, changed gender norms may have led to more subtle shifts in bargaining power and decision-making patterns within the households, in favour of women and girls. During 2022 and the start of 2023, we have disseminated the impact evaluation results broadly, via presentations at conferences and seminars involving academic and policy audiences, and online publication of working papers in the Institute for Fiscal Studies and Tinbergen University research paper series. |
| First Year Of Impact | 2019 |
| Sector | Communities and Social Services/Policy,Government, Democracy and Justice |
| Impact Types | Cultural,Societal,Policy & public services |
| Description | Capacity-building at local implementing partners |
| Geographic Reach | Local/Municipal/Regional |
| Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
| Impact | Our preparatory research activities have had a direct impact in terms of capacity building of our collaborating partners, mainly in Pakistan, as well as the strengthening of their interventions. First, the research team has organised several sessions on research methods for the researchers involved in Oxfam Novib and Oxfam Pakistan, such as a training workshop on the rationale for and the design and analysis of Randomized Control Trials, and an advisory session on qualitative data collection through Focus Group Discussions. Second, the research team has had extensive and repeated discussions with Oxfam Pakistan (in The Netherlands, in Pakistan, as well as through many skype meetings) on the details of their interventions and the underlying theory of change, which have helped them to further develop the details of their activities and their pathways to impact. Third, and relatedly, these discussions led to a refined logical framework, further alignment of the interventions with their objectives, and a strengthening of the Monitoring and Evaluation systems not only at Oxfam Pakistan itself, but also at its local implementing partners Bedari and IRC in South Punjab and Sindh Province, respectively. Fourth, the monitoring and evaluation process during the interventions helped Bedari and IRC to learn some of the best practices to evaluate their own interventions in the future. Lastly, data collection process during the baseline, interventions, endline and follow-up endline enabled the implementing partners to learn and adopt standardized protocols to ensure data-quality during the fieldwork. |
| Description | Contribution to Oxfam Novib's "Edutainment and Child Marriage"-learning document |
| Geographic Reach | Multiple continents/international |
| Policy Influence Type | Citation in other policy documents |
| Description | Mobile cinema, gender workshops and discussion guides |
| Geographic Reach | Asia |
| Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
| Impact | Through its implementing partners IRC and Bedari, Oxfam Pakistan conducted edutainment interventions through mobile cinemas as well as gender workshops to address social norms around women's and girls' position, female education and early marriage. The research team actively contributed (i) to improving the cinema scripts in order to align contents with the theory of change and enhance impact of the communicated message, (ii) to designing the gender workshops by commenting in detail on the curriculum that was developed and providing advice and suggestions for improvement, (iii) by designing a discussion guide to facilitate and enhance the group discussions after community members had participated in the mobile cinema events, and (iv) monitoring and evaluation during the intervention activities. These activities were conducted in 155 villages in Sindh and South Punjab provinces, and open for participation to all households residing in these villages (either the male or female household members, or both, dependent on the treatment arm of the RCT). As communicated by the local partners in Pakistan, these inputs from the research team were greatly appreciated and have contributed notably to the quality and effectiveness of implementation of the interventions. Ultimate impact on the beliefs, attitudes and practices of the target population living in the communities will be part of the RCT endline data analysis. |
| Description | Monitoring and evaluation system of social norms intervention |
| Geographic Reach | Asia |
| Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
| Impact | The research team assisted Oxfam Pakistan and its implementing partners in setting up a structured monitoring and evaluation system to keep detailed track of their activities in the field. In particular, the team developed: (i) a monitoring tool to register attendance and participation in the various social norms activities, including a recording of the contents and processes during the group discussions, (ii) an exit survey to assess participants' perceptions, attitudes and experiences immediately after having participated in the mobile cinema and group discussion events, (iii) a monitoring tool to measure boys' and girls' attendance in primary and middle schools in the study villages at frequent intervals, to be able to observe changes over time in population behaviors that are key to the impacts that Oxfam aims to produce, (iv) a monitoring tool that records the marriages taking place in the study villages over the course of the study period, again a key population impact indicator. (i) and (ii) were used in 155 treatment villages during the intervention phase of the study from January 2019 to June 2019. (iii) and (iv) have been used in 179 villages during the entire study period. These tools will also be useful for monitoring of other interventions carried out by the implementing partners, or in other villages after the study ends. |
| Description | Ongoing support to implementation |
| Geographic Reach | Asia |
| Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
| Impact | To support implementing partners IRC and Bedari in an effective and good-quality implementation of the interventions while also monitoring activities, the research team has recruited two field managers since 2018 and two additional field assistants since 2019. Collaboration between field coordinators and IRC/Bedari's field managers is reportedly very good and appreciated. In addition, the research team and IRC and Bedari have been communicating on a weekly basis through Skype since the start of the implementation to ensure that any challenges or issues in the field were signaled from an early stage and to jointly brainstorm about potential ways to solve them. These frequent and regular moments of contact were a great help in ensuring a smooth roll-out of the interventions and timely addressing of any hiccups. These improvements in implementation came to the benefit of all households with teenaged sons and daughters residing in the 155 treatment villages in our study. |
| Title | Beliefs elicitation |
| Description | The baseline survey in Sindh was completed in 2019. The interventions in both Sindh and Punjab provinces were also completed in 2019. The endline survey was completed at the end of 2019 for Sindh and early 2020 for Punjab. The follow-up endline survey was conducted at the end of 2020 for both Provinces. The data management is being finalized, analysis is ongoing and results will be disseminated soon. |
| Type Of Material | Model of mechanisms or symptoms - human |
| Year Produced | 2018 |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | We are currently at the analysis and writing phase. Preliminary findings have been shared with collaborating partners. No academic impact yet. |
| Title | COVID-19 module |
| Description | The COVID-19 pandemic could have substantial implications for the marriage and education outcomes of the adolescents in our study population, while the edutainment intervention implemented in the treatment communities may have helped to protect girls from the most severe effects. To assess these effects, we added a newly-developed COVID-19 module to the survey, through which we collected information on COVID-related and other illnesses in the household, as well as on the economic and financial impacts of COVID-19. We also added a food security module, to see how the consumption of food has varied after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. |
| Type Of Material | Model of mechanisms or symptoms - human |
| Year Produced | 2020 |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | This module will enable us to investigate the mitigating effects of edutainment interventions on girls' education and early marriage during COVID-19. More precisely, we will examine the heterogeneous impact of the intervention on protecting girls dependent on how hard their families were hit by COVID-19. |
| Title | FGD interview guide |
| Description | We collaborated with Oxfam Novib and Oxfam Pakistan on the design of an exploratory qualitative research study, in particular on the development of a Focus Group Discussions interview guide including vignettes, intra-household decision-making and attitudes and norms regarding violence against women and girls, as well as women's empowerment. |
| Type Of Material | Model of mechanisms or symptoms - human |
| Year Produced | 2017 |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | Findings from analyses of the qualitative data have been used directly as input into the quantitative research instruments described above, as well as in strengthening Oxfam Pakistan's interventions in the field. The results of the qualitative study were written up as a paper by Oxfam Novib, acknowledging the contributions of Oxfam Pakistan and the research team. See the section Research Databases & Models for more details. |
| Title | Measurement of bargaining power |
| Description | A third new research tool that we have developed, is an incentivized tool to measure bargaining power within the household, between spouses and between parents and children. This tool is based on an innovative twist to standard dictator games, that are commonly used in the field of behavioural economics. |
| Type Of Material | Model of mechanisms or symptoms - human |
| Year Produced | 2018 |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | The baseline survey was completed in 2019. The interventions in both Sindh and Punjab provinces were also completed in 2019. The endline surveys in Sindh and Punjab were completed at the end of 2019 and early 2020, respectively, and a follow-up survey was conducted in both provinces at the end of 2020. The data are being analysed and results will be disseminated. |
| Title | Mobile cinema exit surveys |
| Description | Based on a thorough understanding of the mobile cinema scripts and in collaboration with Oxfam's gender specialists in Pakistan as well as The Netherlands, the research team constructed a ten-item exit interview to be held with ten random participants at the end of each mobile cinema event (stratified by age and gender). The exit survey intends to measure identification with the main characters, transportation ('getting absorbed in the story') during the show, and intensity of feelings and attitudes towards girls' education and child marriage upon exiting the premises. |
| Type Of Material | Model of mechanisms or symptoms - human |
| Year Produced | 2018 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | The interventions have been completed. We also collected monitoring data from the interventions, that will be used with the survey data to evaluate the impact of these interventions. |
| Title | Questionnaire |
| Description | In the second half of 2017, we have developed several new research tools that are currently being piloted in the field before the start of the baseline. First, we developed quantitative questionnaires for personal interviewing of household heads, their spouses, and unmarried adolescents living with their parents. The questionnaires cover topics including knowledge, behaviors and attitudes towards girls' education, income-generation and empowerment, early marriage, and domestic violence. The questionnaires were developed based on literature reviews, underlying theoretical models, own-generated qualitative knowledge from the field, and research meetings with local partners. |
| Type Of Material | Model of mechanisms or symptoms - human |
| Year Produced | 2018 |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | The baseline survey in Sindh was completed in 2019. The interventions in both Sindh and Punjab provinces were also completed in 2019. The endline survey in Sindh was completed at the end of 2019, the endline survey in Punjab was concluded early 2020. We are in the process of finalizing data management of the follow-up endline surveys in both provinces. The data are currently being analysed and results will be disseminated. |
| Title | Village-level education and marriage monitoring tools |
| Description | We developed two research tools that help Oxfam Pakistan and implementing partners to monitor changes in key population outcomes that are induced by their interventions over time: a) education data, and b) marriage data. Both tools help improve the program keep track of their interventions, but also have added-value for the RCT research. They provide for an independent and separate measure of our primary outcomes -- measured not at the household level as in the baseline- and endline surveys but at the village level. The education monitoring data are monthly school attendance data by grade, for boys and girls separately, collected through direct observation in the primary/middle schools that are located in the study villages. The marriage monitoring data are monthly (anonymous) reviews of the marriages that took place in the villages, including the ages and community of origin of bride and groom, collected through focus group discussions and key informant interviews. |
| Type Of Material | Model of mechanisms or symptoms - human |
| Year Produced | 2018 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | Impacts have not been established yet as the data is being entered as of now and will soon be shared for analysis purposes. |
| Title | Baseline dataset |
| Description | The research team has collected a baseline dataset in Sindh province among 756 households residing in 80 villages. The dataset consists of surveys and behavioral games. Within each household, three survey interviews were held, with the father, the mother and an adolescent child -- either a boy or a girl age 14-17. Data collected included demographic and socio-economic indicators, educational outcomes, gender attitudes, beliefs and attitudes around child marriage, and domestic violence. In addition, each of the three surveyed household members also participated in a set of incentivized experimental games to understand intra-household decision-making on investments in children. Baseline data have been collected, cleaned and preliminarily analysed. |
| Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
| Year Produced | 2018 |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | The data will serve as the baseline for the RCT study in Sindh province. |
| Title | Endline dataset |
| Description | The research team has collected endline data in Sindh province among 756 households. In Punjab province, the research team collected endline data among 970 households residing in 97 villages. The datasets consist of surveys and behavioral games. Within each household, three interviews were held, with the father, the mother and an adolescent child -- either a boy or a girl who were between the age of 14-17 during the baseline survey. Data collected included demographic and socio-economic indicators, educational outcomes, gender attitudes, beliefs and attitudes around child marriage, interventions feedback and evaluation, and domestic violence. In addition, each of the three household members surveyed also participated in a set of incentivized experimental games to understand intra-household decision-making on investments in children. Endline data from both Sindh and Punjab have been collected and cleaned. |
| Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
| Year Produced | 2019 |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | The data serves as the endline for the RCT study in Sindh and Punjab province. Analysis of this data is in progress and allows us to determine "what works" in DV programming. We will disseminate our results widely. Anonymised versions of the datasets will also be made publicly available for use by other researchers studying DV and related topics. |
| Title | Exploratory study on intra-household decision-making |
| Description | Jointly with Oxfam Novib and Oxfam Pakistan in October 2017, we developed an interview guide for an exploratory, qualitative research study based on focus group discussions (FGDs) and vignettes, to understand intra-household decision-making, attitudes and norms regarding girls' and women's bargaining position in the household, female education, early marriage and violence against women and girls. The field work was piloted and conducted by a local qualitative research organisation under the supervision of Oxfam Pakistan in November 2017. The FGDs were been recorded, transcribed and translated into English, resulting in a rich qualitative database. Joint preliminary analysis of the qualitative data has been used as input in the quantitative and incentivized research tools as described in the section "Research tools & Methods", as well as for improvement of the interventions that were included in the RCT. The final analysis will be written up in a joint publication between the research team, Oxfam Novib and Oxfam Pakistan. |
| Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
| Year Produced | 2018 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | Joint preliminary analysis of the qualitative data has been used as input in the quantitative and incentivized research tools as described in the section "Research tools & Methods", as well as for improvement of the interventions that were included in the RCT. The final analysis will be written up in a joint publication between the research team, Oxfam Novib and Oxfam Pakistan. |
| Title | Follow-up endline dataset |
| Description | The research team conducted a follow-up endline survey in Sindh province among 756 households. In Punjab province, the research team collected follow-up endline data among 970 households residing in 97 villages. The dataset consist of surveys and behavioral games. Within each household, three interviews were held, with the father, the mother and an adolescent child -- either a boy or a girl age who were between the age of 14-17 during the baseline survey. Data collected included demographic and socio-economic indicators, educational outcomes, gender attitudes, beliefs and attitudes around child marriage, interventions feedback and evaluation, and domestic violence. In addition, each of the three individuals surveyed also participated in a set of incentivized experimental games to understand intra-household decision-making on investments in children. Data from both Sindh and Punjab has been collected and cleaned. The analysis of the follow-up endline data will soon start. |
| Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
| Year Produced | 2020 |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | The COVID-19 outbreak has strongly affected the study area. It is suspected that the pandemic's economic consequences will have increased the likelihood of poverty-driven child marriage and that the edutainment intervention may have mitigated this. The follow-up endline aims to assess the long-term impacts of the intervention and study the potential mitigating effect of the edutainment intervention on the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on child marriage and girls' education. We will disseminate our results widely. Anonymised versions of the datasets will also be made publicly available for use by other researchers studying DV and related topics. |
| Title | Master dataset with baseline, endline and village-level data from Sindh and Punjab |
| Description | This master dataset contains the fully cleaned, merged and labelled components of the baseline and endline datasets from Sindh and Punjab provinces, including the household surveys (with father, mother and adolescent interviews), the incentivized behavioral games, and the village-level marriage and education data collected throughout the study period. |
| Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
| Year Produced | 2021 |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | This baseline-endline dataset enables us to conduct the impact analyses according to our pre-analysis plan. |
| Description | Baahn Belli |
| Organisation | Wereld Natuur Fonds-Nederland (WWF Netherlands) |
| Country | Netherlands |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| PI Contribution | Baahn Belli is Oxfam Pakistan's local implementing partner for its interventions in Sindh Province. As a result of the research project, a partnership has been established between the research team and Baahn Belli as well. Oxfam Pakistan contracted with Baahn Belli after ending the contract with IRC. Baahn Belli hired most of IRC's original staff that was working on their MTBA (More Than Brides Alliance) Programme and was also supporting the research project. In November 2020, the CERP field coordinators hired by the research team held pilots of the survey instrument with Baahn Belli in Sindh. In November-December 2020, CERP along with its field partner conducted a follow-up endline survey in 80 villages, interviewing the households that were part of the baseline. |
| Collaborator Contribution | In Fall 2020, Baahn Belli supported CERP and its field partner in the field for a household survey in the 80 villages in Sindh. A total of 4 Social Mobilizers travelled with the survey and CERP team each day during the entire length of survey to mobilize the study households. Baahn Belli along with CERP also actively conducted tracking before the start of the survey to locate all households and inform the respondents about the survey. |
| Impact | This collaboration has resulted in the completion of the follow-up endline survey in Sindh for the study. |
| Start Year | 2020 |
| Description | Bedari |
| Organisation | Bedari |
| Country | Pakistan |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| PI Contribution | Bedari is Oxfam Pakistan's local implementing partner for its interventions in Punjab Province. As a result of the research project, a partnership has been established between the research team and Bedari as well. In addition to the organisation of research workshops as described under "Oxfam Pakistan", Dr Morsink held meetings at Bedari's offices in Islamabad in April 2017 to develop a detailed fieldwork plan. Moreover, the research team has directly contributed to this partnership through the strengthening of the Monitoring and Evaluation system of Bedari. In March 2018, Dr Cassidy and Dr Morsink held meetings with Bedari staff at their offices in Islamabad to co-develop the baseline survey instruments and train their staff on the survey. In April 2018, the CERP project coordinators hired by the research team held pilots of the survey instrument with Bedari in South Punjab. In November 2018, Dr Cassidy met with Bedari staff in Lahore to strengthen the relationship and discuss progress of their intervention development. Umair Kiani, the research team's project coordinator in Lahore, also attended a one day conference held by Bedari to engage policymakers on their work on child marriage. In Autumn-Winter 2018, Dr Cassidy, Dr Janssens and Dr Morsink worked with Bedari to co-develop their mobile cinema scripts and gender workshop discussion guide, as well as monitoring tools for both of these activities. |
| Collaborator Contribution | In addition to sharing their local knowledge about VAWG and sensitizing the local communities for the upcoming research (both also described under "Oxfam Pakistan"), and important contribution of our local partner Bedari has been to identify potential communities to be included in the research study and to assess their eligibility for inclusion based on a number of criteria set by the research team (amongst others having own mosque, primary school, doctor, being separated by road/river from other communities with sufficient distance in between). This contribution has led to a list of 200 eligible communities in the study area. In April 2018, Bedari facilitated the piloting of the survey instruments by selecting and contacting non-study communities and having their lead field office staff and social mobilisers accompany the CERP project coordinators to enter communities and hold focus group discussions and mock interviews. In Autumn 2018, Bedari conducted a large household listing exercise across 97 villages in order to identify households suitable for participation in the baseline study, according to criteria set by the research team. Bedari also took the lead on developing the mobile cinema scripts and gender workshop discussion guides mentioned above. In Spring 2019, Bedari assisted CERP and its survey partner to complete an endline survey in the 97 villages of Punjab and in Fall 2020, Bedari assisted the field teams again to complete a follow-up endline survey in the same set of villages. |
| Impact | This collaboration has resulted in user engagement activities (in particular the "research workshops"), in policy influence ("capacity-building at local implementing partners"), as well as in the selection and sensitization of 97 eligible villages for the study, and their mobilization for the endline and follow-up endline surveys. |
| Start Year | 2017 |
| Description | CERP |
| Organisation | Center for Economic Research |
| Country | Pakistan |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| PI Contribution | The Center for Economic Research in Pakistan (CERP) is our local research partner in Pakistan. Since the start of the study we have been in continuous touch with them. Dr Morsink held extensive meetings with CERP in Lahore in April 2017 to discuss the research details and develop a research implementation plan. Dr Rachel Cassidy and Dr Karlijn Morsink had further extensive meetings with CERP in Lahore in March and April 2018 to discuss budget and obtaining the No Objections Certificates (NOC) - the formal government permission needed to carry out the research. Dr Rachel Cassidy further met with CERP in Lahore in September 2018 and November 2018 to strengthen the relationship and discuss the NOC for South Punjab which proved complex to obtain due to substantial changes in government procedure. Since then, the research team have had weekly calls with and daily email contact with the project coordinators at CERP, and weekly contact with the member of CERP's management team who was responsible for obtaining the NOC. CERP eventually obtained the NOC for endline survey in Punjab at the end of 2019 and the field work in South Punjab started soon after that. CERP also acquired an NOC for the endline and the follow-up endline surveys in both Sindh and Punjab in 2020. In addition to coordinating the field work, CERP has played a central role in facilitating the contacts between the research team and local authorities in the study areas. Finally, CERP has been responsible for data cleaning and management. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Throughout 2018, 2019 and 2020, CERP has contributed to obtaining permission from the Government of Pakistan (so-called No Objection Certificates or NOCs) for the international research team to travel to the study sites and for the field team to conduct field work and collect data in the study areas. CERP has also been responsible for the recruitment of local research team members, and for hiring the in-country survey company to conduct the baseline survey in Sindh, and endline and follow-up endline surveys in Sindh and Punjab. |
| Impact | This collaboration has resulted in research tools ("questionnaires", "beliefs elicitation", "measurement of bargaining power", "edutainment monitoring tools", "marriage and education data collection tools") that were explicitly informed by our joint research meetings. It has also resulted in the obtainment of No Objections Certificates from the Government of Pakistan for Sindh, allowing the international research team to travel to the research sites and the field work to be conducted in the study areas. Finally, the collaboration has resulted in a complete dataset including the baseline, endline and follow-up endline surveys. |
| Start Year | 2016 |
| Description | IRC |
| Organisation | Indus Resource Center |
| Country | Pakistan |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| PI Contribution | IRC is Oxfam Pakistan's local implementing partner for its interventions in Sindh Province. As a result of the research project, a partnership has been established between the research team and IRC. In addition to the organisation of research workshops as described under "Oxfam Pakistan", Dr Morsink held meetings at IRC's offices in Karachi in April 2017 to develop a detailed fieldwork plan. These meetings were used to finalise the distribution of responsibilities across partners, and to the selection of the study communities and the sampling criteria. Moreover, the research team has directly contributed to this partnership through the strengthening of the Monitoring and Evaluation system of IRC. In March 2018, Dr Cassidy and Dr Morsink travelled to Sindh to meet with IRC staff, co-develop the baseline survey instruments, and conduct an extensive pilot of the baseline survey instruments in villages just outside the study area. In April 2018, Dr Morsink returned to Sindh to conduct enumerator training along with IRC and the project coordinators from CERP. In Summer 2018, the research team and the CERP project coordinators randomised the villages selected by IRC to be included in the study sample, and oversaw the roll-out of the baseline survey, including daily contact between the CERP project coordinators and both IRC and the research team. In Autumn 2018, the research team then had input into the scripts for IRC's mobile cinemas and gender workshops, and co-developed monitoring tools for these activities with IRC. The research team also worked in close partnership with IRC to develop tools for the collection of marriage and education data from the villages, from administrative sources to complement the baseline survey, and to have this data entered and processed. The research team also analysed the baseline data collected from Sindh, and shared this analysis with IRC. The research team then randomised the communities identified by IRC into treatment arms on the basis of extensive statistical analysis of the baseline data. The interventions were carried out in 60 villages of Sindh based on the relevant treatment arms assigned through randomization. After the intervention phase, endline survey was planned with IRC, CERP, and local survey firm hired by CERP to conduct the endline field survey. The endline survey started in October 2019 and concluded in December 2019. |
| Collaborator Contribution | In addition to sharing their local knowledge about VAWG and sensitizing the local communities for the upcoming research (both also described under "Oxfam Pakistan"), an important contribution of our local partners IRC has been to identify potential communities to be included in the research study and to assess their eligibility for inclusion based on a number of criteria set by the research team (amongst others having own mosque, primary school, doctor, being separated by road/river from other communities with sufficient distance in between). This contribution has led to a list of 200 eligible communities in the study area. In the Summer of 2018, IRC staff undertook a large-scale screening of households in the 80 villages in the study sample, in order to screen 800 households for participation in the baseline survey on the basis of criteria set by the research team. In July and August 2018, IRC staff then assisted the local survey company in entering the communities, identifying the households and mobilising them to participate in the baseline survey. In Autumn 2018, IRC staff took the lead in preparing the scripts for the mobile cinema and gender workshop interventions described above. In December 2018, IRC developed a detailed work plan in line with the randomisation of communities into different treatment arms, and began the roll-out of these interventions. IRC conducted intervention activities from January 2019 to June 2019. IRC also did endline tracking and assisted survey firm and CERP in identifying baseline respondents for the endline survey. |
| Impact | This collaboration has resulted in user engagement activities (in particular the "research workshops"), in policy influence ("capacity-building at local implementing partners"), as well as in the selection and sensitization of 200 eligible villages for the study. The baseline survey in Summer 2018 resulted in a baseline dataset which the research team has preliminarily analysed. The endline survey in October-December 2019 resulted in an endline dataset. |
| Start Year | 2017 |
| Description | Oxfam Novib |
| Organisation | Oxfam Novib |
| Country | Netherlands |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| PI Contribution | In this project, we are closely collaborating with Oxfam Novib, The Hague. The proposal itself is built on our prior successful collaboration on 'Women's Empowerment and Fertility in Mozambique', funded by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research/PopDev Hewlett Foundation, which resulted in policy briefs, a working paper, and numerous academic and policy presentations at international conferences and invited seminars by the research team. Experiences during the Mozambique collaboration underscored the pervasiveness of violence against women and girls, the importance for Oxfam to address this major societal problem in its programmes, and for the research team to further investigate the drivers of domestic violence to understand: "What works? And why?" Joint with Oxfam Novib and funded by Share-Net International, we set up a pilot project in Mozambique to further develop our initial ideas. This pilot subsequently resulted in the proposal on Women's Empowerment, Social Norms and Domestic Violence as funded by DFID-ESRC. As described in earlier communications and approved by the granting committee, we have carefully searched with Oxfam Novib to find their VAGW in Pakistan to be the most suitable study location for our joint research project. In 2018 and 2019, we have intensively collaborated with Oxfam Novib in interpreting and writing-up the qualitative exploratory study. While developing the research methodology for the RCT, we have shared and jointly discussed the sampling methodology, research tools, and study design. We provided detailed suggestions for the further development of their interventions, specifically the mobile cinema edutainment activities (script and discussion guide) and gender workshops, and to the development of their monitoring tools. These activities are described in more detail below. We organized a joint workshop to discuss the preliminary baseline findings in December 2019 in The Hague. The research team also contributed to their upcoming full-day expert meeting on Social Norms by organising one of the interactive sessions on the measurement of social norms and beliefs. In December 2020 we organized a joint brainstorm workshop in The Hague to discuss the preliminary endline findings on the impact of the edutainment interventions on norms and attitudes in the study population. Over the course of 2020, when it became clear that COVID-19 had a significant impact on the study populations, Oxfam Novib and the research team jointly developed a proposal for an extension of the original research to add a follow-up endline survey to the 2018 baseline and 2019 endline survey. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Oxfam Novib funded the entire implementation of the intervention, including all adjustments and additional activities necessary for the design and implementation of the Randomized Control Trial. It also provided additional funding for staff at the local implementing organisations to assist the research team during baseline and endline data collection, as well as monitoring of adherence to the RCT protocol. In March 2017, Oxfam Novib organized a workshop on the research project in Nepal. The objective of the workshop was for the research team to get to know in detail the social norm interventions that Oxfam implements in Pakistan. The session was run by Oxfam Novib as a training for Oxfam Pakistan, and the local implementing partners IRC, and Bedari. The content focused on GALS (gender active learning system) and edutainment. This was a key opportunity for knowledge to flow from our NGO partners to the research team, in particular with Oxfam explaining in detail its theory of change. The workshop consisted of two introduction days in the office, one for the GALS and one for edutainment, then one day in the field with Oxfam Nepal, and then a reflection day. Oxfam Novib made further contributions to this collaboration by sharing the results from their own quantitative and qualitative baseline surveys; and by their contributions to the joint exploratory qualitative research study conducted in the fourth quarter of 2017 (see the sections on Research Tools & Methods and Research Databases & Models). Since the start of 2018, Oxfam Novib has contributed to the partnership through continuous support for the RCT, providing feedback on research tools, sharing their intervention descriptions for input from the research team, financing two additional social mobilizers to facilitate the implementation of the study in the field, hosting and co-organising the joint workshop on baseline findings, and sharing their knowledge and expertise on the facilitation of interactive discussions in a traditional rural community setting. In 2020, Oxfam Novib made additional funding available (26000 euro) to support the follow-up endline survey in order to assess the longer-term impacts of the intervention since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. |
| Impact | This collaboration has resulted in user engagement activities (in particular the "research workshops"), and in research tools ( "questionnaires", "beliefs elicitation", "measurement of bargaining power", "monitoring and evaluation tools" and "exit surveys") that were explicitly informed by many joint research meetings, prior studies carried out by Oxfam Novib as well as our collaborative qualitative "Exploratory study on intra-household decision-making" (based on the research tool "FGD interview guide"), as well as two short films on girls' education and early marriage. It has also resulted in triangulation of intermediate research findings, and in funding for a follow-up endline survey. |
| Start Year | 2010 |
| Description | Oxfam Pakistan |
| Organisation | Oxfam International |
| Department | Oxfam in Pakistan |
| Country | Pakistan |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| PI Contribution | Since the start of the study in Pakistan, we have closely collaborated with Oxfam Pakistan as well as their local implementing partners Bedari (Punjab) and IRC (Sindh) through workshops, personal meetings and regular Skype conversations. We have jointly identified and further developed the specific activities of their VAWG programmes that will be included in the study, thereby strengthening their curriculum while simultaneously refining the research design to benefit as much as possible from the opportunities presented by the field work. We have also discussed in detail the most urgent research questions from the perspective of the implementing partners, and their knowledge from the field regarding mechanisms and drivers of domestic violence. In particular, we held a first preparatory workshop with Oxfam Novib and Oxfam Pakistan at the Oxfam Novib offices in the Hague, just prior to the start of the project in December 2016. The purpose was to brainstorm about the research design. We spent the subsequent months undertaking sustained efforts to guarantee capacity building and strengthening of coordination with our in-country partners. Throughout, we have been in frequent contact with our in-country counterparts at Oxfam in Pakistan, through regular Skype meetings. We then held an intensive two-day kick-off workshop in Islamabad in March 2017, involving representatives of Oxfam as well as its local implementing partners Bedari (Punjab) and IRC (Sindh). This allowed to research team to present in detail the rationale for randomised controlled trials, and to emphasise how causal estimates of impact can help NGOs to improve their programming and engagement of donors, increasing ownership from Oxfam Pakistan, Bedari and IRC. Moreover, a session was organized to help identify common components of Bedari's and IRC's social norm interventions, and to align them such that the intervention being studied will be standardised across Punjab and Sindh. In March 2018, Dr Cassidy and Dr Morsink travelled to the Oxfam Pakistan HQ in Islamabad and met with staff to discuss overall project progress and obtaining of the NOCs. Since then, the research team have continued to be in regular contact with the project lead at Oxfam Pakistan. Oxfam Pakistan staff were also invited to and attended the joint workshop to discuss the preliminary baseline findings in December 2018 in The Hague, and the preliminary endline findings in December 2020. |
| Collaborator Contribution | In July 2017, a programme meeting was organised in Islamabad by Oxfam Novib and Oxfam Pakistan with the objectives of: 1) agreeing and reaching a common understanding on the overall vision, outcomes and objectives of Oxfam's intervention, as written down in the detailed implementation plan; 2) review of the progress to date and to sharing of experiences, lessons and challenges in implementation; and 3) planning for the year 2018. The research team participated via Skype. Throughout the study period, the regular contacts with Oxfam Pakistan allowed the research team to greatly benefit from their local knowledge regarding drivers of Violence Against Women and Girls, as well as their in-depth understanding of sensitivities and risks when working in remote rural areas. Since August 2017, Oxfam Pakistan together with local partners IRC and Bedari have been sensitizing the study communities. This was necessary in order to engage the local community leaders and community members before our baseline data collection in the first quarter of 2018 and the introduction of the social norms interventions thereafter. In the last quarter of 2017, the research team worked closely together with Oxfam Novib and Oxfam Pakistan to design and analyse a qualitative exploratory research study. This is further discussed below under Research Databases & Models. Throughout 2018, 2019 and 2020, Oxfam Pakistan has provided leadership to the local implementing partners Bedari, IRC and Baahn Belli, and has played a very active role in managing relationships between the research team, Oxfam Novib, and the implementing partners. Oxfam Pakistan staff have also provided detailed feedback on the survey tools and activity monitoring tools developed by the research team. Finally, their feedback and insights have enabled the research team to validate the preliminary impact findings. |
| Impact | This collaboration has resulted in user engagement activities (in particular the "research workshops"), in policy influence ("capacity-building at local implementing partners"), in research tools ( "questionnaires", "beliefs elicitation", "measurement of bargaining power") that were explicitly informed by many joint research meetings as well as our collaborative qualitative "Exploratory study on intra-household decision-making" (based on the research tool "FGD interview guide"). |
| Start Year | 2016 |
| Description | PSPA |
| Organisation | Punjab Social Protection Authority (PSPA) |
| Country | Pakistan |
| Sector | Public |
| PI Contribution | PSPA is CERP's government partner in Punjab who reviewed and vetted the survey instruments. It also recommended a possible set of questions that were added to the survey modules during the endline. PSPA approved the survey instruments and wrote to the Home Department, Punjab, through its parent department Planning and Development Board to issue CERP and its survey partner an NOC to conduct the field surveys in 97 villages of Punjab. |
| Collaborator Contribution | PSPA's contribution to the research project led CERP and its field partner to smoothly conduct the survey in the field. |
| Impact | This collaboration has resulted in user engagement activities. CERP's Project Manager met the CEO and Policy Director of PSPA in 2019 to propose a partnership on the project. Later, the research team held a virtual meeting with PSPA to discuss survey instruments and add research queries that PSPA wanted to explore through this study. The research team along with the PSPA are exploring the endline data in Punjab to write a policy brief on some of the findings. |
| Start Year | 2019 |
| Description | 100 Years of Economic Development conference presentation |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Research presentation of the RCT findings to international academic conference |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| Description | 8th Annual Student Meeting "Linking, Research, Policy and Practice" |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Fleur Schoenmaker, an MSc Economics student at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam used the baseline dataset from Sindh province to write a thesis on the impact of poverty and social norms regarding female education on the expected age of marriage of girls in Pakistan. She was selected for a poster presentation at a student event in The Hague to present her findings. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| Description | Baseline findings brainstorm workshop |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | We organised an interactive brainstorm session at Oxfam Novib, The Hague, including researchers and practitioners from The Netherlands, The United Kingdom as well as Pakistan (both in person and through skype connection) to present the preliminary baseline research findings, discuss potential interpretation and brainstorm about further analyses. The workshop enabled the research team to benefit from Oxfam's in-depth on-the-ground expertise which will be helpful in guiding future analysis and strengthening understanding about local contexts. Oxfam benefited from gaining a greater understanding of their target population's characteristics, attitudes, beliefs and practices with respect to VAWG. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | EUDN conference presentation |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Research seminar presenting the RCT findings |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| Description | Incentivized beliefs elicitation on social norms and child marriage |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Wendy Janssens organized a session on "Incentivized beliefs elicitation on social norms and child marriage" at a day-long expert meeting on "The Measurement of Social Norms", organized by Oxfam Novib, The Hague, 18 March 2019. The audience included professionals from NGOs, from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and academics. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| Description | Invited seminar presentation, Tillburg University |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Academic research presentation of RCT findings |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| Description | Lahore School of Economics conference presentation |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Academic presentation by co-author Anaya Dam to the International Conference on Applied Development Economics at the Center for Research in Economics and Business, Lahore School of Economics |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| Description | NEUDC Yale presentation |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Academic presentation of the research findings by co-PI Rachel Cassidy to the North-Eastern Universities Development Consortium in Yale. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| Description | Nordic Conference in Development Economics presentation |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Academic presentation by co-author Anaya Dam, to the Nordic Conference in Development Economics in Finland. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| Description | PACDEV conference presentation |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Presentation of the research by co-PI Rachel Cassidy, to the Pacific Development Economics Conference (USA). |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| Description | Panel discussant at the Punjab Commission on the Status of Women's International Policy Conference |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | In November 2018, Dr Cassidy was invited to speak on a panel at the Punjab Commission on the Status of Women's (PCSW) International Policy Conference. She used this opportunity to discuss the design and preliminary findings of the project with a wide audience of policymakers, practitioners including representatives from the World Bank, FCDO, Gates Foundation, the Swedish Ambassador to Pakistan, and various NGOs. She also specifically strengthened links with the chair of PCSW and PCSW's head of academic research, both of whom expressed great interest in the project and will help to disseminate the study' findings in Pakistan. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | Paris Workshop in Gender and Family Economics presentation |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Academic conference presentation of RCT findings |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| Description | Participation in Lahore School of Economics Annual Conference |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Dr Cassidy attended and presented previous work at the Lahore School of Economics Annual Conference. She used this opportunity to speak widely about this project to academics working in Pakistan, from the fields of economics, international development and gender studies. Members of the policy community were also present, including representatives of several provincial government ministries in Pakistan, and she also discussed the project at length with them. This served the dual purpose of publicising the project and gaining feedback from these important stakeholders. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | Preliminary endline findings brainstorm workshop |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | We organised an interactive virtual brainstorm session including researchers and practitioners from The Netherlands, The United Kingdom as well as Pakistan (through Microsoft Teams connection) to present the preliminary endline research findings, discuss potential interpretation and brainstorm about further analyses. The workshop enabled the research team to benefit from Oxfam's Novib/Pakistan's in-depth on-the-ground expertise which will be helpful in guiding future analysis and strengthening understanding about local contexts. Oxfam benefited from gaining a greater understanding of their target population's characteristics, attitudes, beliefs and practices with respect to VAWG. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| Description | Research seminar |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Invited research seminar at the Development Economics group of the University of Passau, with an international audience of researchers attending (both faculty, and (post)graduate students) - sparking questions, discussion and interest in the topic. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| Description | Research workshops |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | See "Collaborations and Partnerships" for a detailed description of our engagement activities with Oxfam Novib and our local implementing partners in Pakistan. Our workshops have led to numerous discussions with our collaborating partners on the role of research, the details of their interventions, and the ways through which they can monitor and evaluate their own activities. The workshops have created ownership of the research among our implemented partners, and have enabled them to share their views, wishes as well as outstanding questions with the research team. Ultimately, we expect these workshops (that will be recurrent during the course of the research project) to have a direct influence on the programming of our partners. In particular, Oxfam Novib intends to use the findings to further refine its programs 'Safe Spaces: Ending Violence Against Women' as well as 'Pop Culture with a Purpose'. The target countries within these programmes are Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen, OPTI and potentially Morocco and Lebanon for the former, and Egypt, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Rwanda, Somalia, South Sudan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Vietnam and Pakistan for the latter. Oxfam Pakistan, Bedari and IRC hope to directly benefit from the knowledge to be gained from the study, as they can use the insights to adjust their interventions where necessary and to focus their resources on the most promising and effective components of their program. We are in the last phase of endline data collection, and thus these impacts will materialize soon once the data is analysed and results are available. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017,2018 |
| Description | Royal Holloway University seminar presentation |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Invited seminar presentation of the research findings |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| Description | University of Namur research seminar |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Research seminar presenting the RCT findings |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| Description | Wageningen University seminar presentation |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Invited seminar presentation of the RCT findings |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |