Rapid Research Response to COVID-19

The global health crisis caused by COVID-19 has brought the economy of Bangladesh to a standstill. Our studies show that its effect has been nothing short of crippling on the livelihoods of the poor and the marginalized as well as on the country’s essential sectors such as agriculture and the ready-made garments (RMG). Though people are trying to cope with this crisis in their own ways as they await government support,  our study proposes an integrated policy framework that brings together public and private institutions to provide support to the affected people and enterprises while strengthening the health system.

Livelihoods, Coping and Support During the COVID-19 Crisis

Power and Participation Research Centre (PPRC) and BRAC Institute for Governance and Development (BIGD) joined hands to analyze the economic shocks faced by the poor and vulnerable people and their coping mechanisms, and explore whether there are systematic variations among different demographic and occupational groups. The first round of the survey took place at the beginning of the ‘general holidays’ across 5,471 households in both rural Bangladesh and urban slums, through a rapid response telephonic survey. The second round of the survey has been completed in June.

Effect of COVID-19 on RMG sector and Trade Union Efforts to Mitigate Fall Out

This study aimed to identify the role of trade union leaders in negotiating the rights of workers during the COVID-19 crisis and to examine their perspectives on the design and implementation of the financial stimulus package, through in-depth qualitative interviews with 20 trade union leaders.

Formulation of COVID-19 Contingency Measures within 8FYP

This study presents an integrated policy framework to deal with the lives vs livelihoods dilemma in Bangladesh, consisting of a judicious combination of three types of policy instruments: (a) physical distancing through economic shutdown, (b) economic support for the vulnerable, and (c) a powerful system of public health support, as a means of ensuring that the economy can be reopened ‘safely’.

Protection and Revival of the Agriculture Sector from the COVID-19 Induced Economic Crisis

This study aimed to understand the impact of COVID-19 on the Boro rice farmers of Bangladesh, through a nationwide phone survey of more than 2,800 farmers to analyse the challenges they face, assess their losses, and recommend appropriate measures to support them.

Effective communication during a global pandemic is crucial in handling the crisis, especially one that requires individual measures such as social distancing, hand-washing, wearing masks, etc. But we have found that the communication products for COVID-19 in Bangladesh are not designed and disseminated to suit the country’s geographic and socio-economic context. As a result, people are misinterpreting and ignoring the messages conveyed to them. They also lack a clear understanding of what to do if they contract the Coronavirus.

Crisis of Communication during COVID-19: A Rapid Research

To understand how this Coronavirus-related information is being received, interpreted, and enacted within the everyday life of the recipients, we conducted a rapid anthropological study based on 82 telephone interviews with purposively selected respondents from different classes, gender, and locality in four different clusters in Dhaka.

Understanding how communities are responding to the COVID-19 pandemic can help policymakers formulate more effective policies to tackle the crisis. It emerged from our study that though the majority of the people in Bangladesh are adhering to social distancing, there is a large consensus that the lockdown will not hold if the government does not provide entitlement support. Yet so far, people have received little to no assistance from the government. Because of this delayed assistance and confusion about what will be provided, to whom, when, and how, people are increasingly losing their trust in the government.

Trust, Institutions, and Collective Action: Rapid Study of Community Responses to COVID-19 in Bangladesh

To explore community responses to the lockdown and analyze the government’s efforts to flatten the curve against the COVID-19 pandemic, we conducted a rapid research study in 20 purposively selected communities across Bangladesh. The study, conducted in two rounds, was designed to inform the government and its partners about how their policies and communications were being received and acted upon by communities.

One of the biggest long-term challenges of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic in Bangladesh will be recovering the loss of human capital (e.g. because of months of school closure) as well as building new capital to match the demands of the new reality (e.g. how to integrate scores of unskilled/semi-skilled migrant workers returning home). The gravity and magnitude of this challenge are evident in the impact of this pandemic on children’s education. Our study shows that since the lockdown, students’ daily study hours have declined dramatically. The government’s remedial measures of virtual learning have not been much effective, as many do not have access to technology and the takeup rate has been very low.

Coronavirus Outbreak, Schooling and Learning: Study on Secondary School Students in Bangladesh

We have conducted a study through a nationwide phone survey of about 4,700 households to document the disruption to learning activities and time allocation caused by the pandemic and to inform policymakers on the effectiveness of their technology-driven initiatives.

Rehabilitation of Returning Migrants

This study is designed to understand the challenges that recent return migrant workers are facing, and what kind of initiatives/support they think will be useful for them to reintegrate in the economy.

While women are playing an integral role in tackling COVID-19, both in their homes as primary caregivers and also in their workplaces as advocates for health, safety and fair wages, they are also being disproportionately affected by the pandemic. Increased cases of domestic violence have been reported across the world and in Bangladesh, while pandemic-induced layoffs and delayed or stalled payments in the readymade garments (RMG) sector has exacerbated the economic vulnerability of working women, who make up 61% of the labour force of this industry.

Media Tracking Report on the Role of Women Trade Union Leaders and Domestic Violence

This study explores the role that women are playing in the COVID-19 crisis from two angles – by examining how women trade union leaders are tackling the pandemic crisis in the RMG sector, and by analysing the increase in domestic violence as a result of lockdown during the COVID-19 pandemic period, through a media-tracking exercise.

Over the past decades, Bangladesh achieved plausible progress in digitizing itself through online business. But COVID-19 has hit these businesses, especially the female online entrepreneurs, hard. Our study findings on these female entrepreneurs show that most of them are losing a significant amount of revenue. Some are trying to reduce the loss by selling their stock at a discount. But without support, these entrepreneurs will have to lay off their employees or shut down their businesses entirely. Yet, they remain ineligible for the government’s stimulus package for not having formal registration or a trade license.

How Resilient are Female Online Entrepreneurs? Findings from the COVID-19 Shock

In this study, we focused on female online entrepreneurs who operate on Facebook to investigate how they cope with the COVID-19 shock and what strategies they use to sustain their businesses, through an online survey of 122 Facebook female online entrepreneurs in Bangladesh.

Evaluation of Behavior Change Communication, BRAC Social Innovation Lab (SIL)

Through a randomized control trial (RCT), we will evaluate the effectiveness of a behaviour change communication (BCC) program of the Social Innovation Lab (SIL) of BRAC, which aims to raise community awareness on ways of preventing COVID-19 transmission and adopting healthier hygiene practices.

Political Economy of COVID-19 Testing Regime in Bangladesh

This study aims to analyze both supply and demand dimensions of the testing regime, to help policymakers chart appropriate reform strategies for wider public health sector governance.

Governance and Public Health Response to COVID-19

This study will empirically test how changes in the governance of selected services within COVID-19 response have affected the efficiency of delivery.

Education and COVID-19

This research will inform policy on how to nudge students from marginalized communities to increase the uptake of technologies to improve learning outcomes, particularly during events like the COVID-19 pandemic.

Upskilling in the post-COVID-19 era

This study will explore two possible research questions: i) can IT support make freelance informal workers more resilient to recession? and ii) if unemployed enumerators are provided with some basic training and equipment (perhaps on loan), will they be able to recover faster from this crisis?

Access to Justice for GBV Survivors in COVID-19 Context

This research will explore access to justice issues during COVID-19 for survivors of gender-based violence, specifically domestic violence, through the lens of legal aid organizations as they adapt to lockdown measures, social distancing, closure of service institutions and the increased reliance on technology.

Economic Transitions and Coping with Shocks: Women in the RMG Sector Coping with COVID-19

This study will explore how is COVID-19 affecting women RMG workers’ and their households’ livelihoods transitions and coping strategies.

Role of e-governance in COVID-19 Response

This study aims to understand the relationship and interaction between different components of e-Governance and evaluate its performance in terms of effectively providing services to the target beneficiaries during the pandemic crisis.

Technology as a Path to Recovery for Female Entrepreneurs

The research aims to investigate the business resilience of female-owned SMEs during the crisis and will focus on barriers to recovery and the potential role of the technological solution that is needed for these SMEs to enable their businesses during and post-crisis.