Building Crisis Monitoring Systems FFF Crises Practice Group East Asia and Pacific Region The World Bank June 11, 2009

What is the Problem? Real-time analysis of the social impacts of crisis requires high frequency data on consumption/income, employment, wages, education, health, safety nets, etc. Yet, relatively little real-time data exist on most of these variables The first round of policy responses are ahead of social impact monitoring; policy makers have acted on intuition, hunches, and existing knowledge of the country There is a sense that more scientific monitoring is needed, and countries/donors have started to put mechanisms in place to monitor the social impact of crisis This raises second-round issues about links between monitoring response systems, i.e. how do the results of monitoring efforts feed back into policy responses?

“Where you stand depends on where you sit!” Why a Crisis monitoring System (CMS)? “Where you stand depends on where you sit!” Country-level objectives Regional objectives Need for information/ analysis to inform Government policy responses WB/ donor support Strategic responses of Bank, donors at the regional level Need for public information

Simulated impacts of the crisis on poverty in Cambodia Data Sources 1. Surveys Objectives: Ex ante simulations; ex post impact assessment Pros Detailed data Generally reliable Statistically representative Simulated impacts of the crisis on poverty in Cambodia Percentage of population under national poverty line 34.7 30.1 32.9 30.6 36.2 36.9 33.9 28.1 28.2 29.1 36.0 36.4 33.1 35.3 25 30 35 40 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 Cons Low frequency Lag in data and analysis Standard vs. crisis- related variables

Data Sources 2. Rapid Qualitative Assessment Objectives: Quick snapshot; texture; granularity Pros Rich information Quick turnaround Focused on vulnerable groups Cons Not statistically representative May miss unexpected impacts

Data Sources 3. Administrative Data Objective: Monitoring outcomes with “authorative” data Pros Complete inventory count Official data Collected regularly Public sources (Ministries, NSO etc.): Education: Student enrollment, no. of schools, no. of teachers Health: no. of outpatients, no. of cases submitted to health insurance Labor: no. of social security registrants, no. of unemployment beneficiaries Private sources (CoC, Associations etc): Labor: no. Lay-offs, no. of firms active in a sector Cons Mostly low frequency Often substantial lag Often partial picture Quality of data questionable

Data Sources 4. Additional quantitative data collection Objective: Quick, high frequency assessment based on quantitative surveys/ data Pros Often based on existing surveys Relatively cheap Quick Examples: 1. Rapid quantitative questionnaires/rider questions 2. Rapid response firm survey (Biz sentiment Laos) Firms’ perspective over the next 6 months 3. Sentinel Sites Approach (UNICEF) Collect some crucial indicators in a quick and easy manner 4. Social Weather Station (Philippines) 5. Track proxy variables Cons Not representative May lack baseline Capacity building vs. speed

Data Sources 5. “Creative” data collection Objective: Quick, high frequency assessment based on non-standard data sources Pros Could provide a nice punchline Cheap Quick Factiva search for "unemployment" with "unrest" in the same paragraph in E. Asia publications (Sept 08-May 09) Cons Not representative Difficult to interpret Context dependent 09/08 05/09

Challenges to building a country/regional CMS Data gaps abound ... but face differing objectives at the country and regional levels Country level Regional level Having data/ monitoring inform policy (detailed data/ analysis) Action often precedes analysis Working with/strengthening country capacity Resource limitations, gov’t/ donor budget constraints Building a coherent regional monitoring system (cross-country comparability, less detail) Data gaps vary significantly across countries Economic realities vary considerably across countries Data definitions vary across countries (Country capacity and resource constraint issues still apply)

Our Approach Existing data Minding the Gaps LM and HH surveys Administrative data Firm surveys LM and HH surveys Administrative data Firm surveys Quantitative: Rapid assessments Sentinel sites approach Quantitative: Rapid assessments Sentinel sites approach Qualitative: Focus group interviews Country reports Qualitative: Focus group interviews Country reports We are using multiple existing data sources opportunistically and supplementing these by fielding quick and cheap quantitative and qualitative surveys to fill data gaps Key trade-off: Need to build statistical capacity (long-run) vs. creating crisis-specific data to fill gaps quickly (short-run)

Thanks very much!