COVID-19 High Frequency Phone Survey 2020 (Chad)

Abstract

In Chad, COVID-19 is expected to affect households in many ways. First, governments might reduce social transfers to households due to the decline in revenue arising from the potential COVID-19 economic recession. Second households deriving income from vulnerable sectors such as tourism and related activities will likely face risk of unemployment or loss of income. Third an increase in prices of imported goods can also negatively impact household welfare, as a direct consequence of the increase of these imported items or as indirect increase of prices of local good manufactured using imported inputs. In this context, there is a need to produce high frequency data to help policy makers in monitoring the channels by which the pandemic affects households and assessing its distributional impact. To do so, the sample of the longitudinal survey will be a sub-sample of the 2018/19 Enquête sur la Consommation des Ménages et le Secteur Informel au Tchad (Ecosit 4) in Chad.

This has the advantage of conducting cost effectively welfare analysis without collecting new consumption data. The 30 minutes questionnaires covered many modules, including knowledge, behavior, access to services, food security, employment, safety nets, shocks, coping, etc. Data collection is planned for four months (four rounds) and the questionnaire is designed with core modules and rotating modules.

The main objectives of the survey are to:
• Identify type of households directly or indirectly affected by the pandemic;
• Identify the main channels by which the pandemic affects households;
• Provide relevant data on income and socioeconomic indicators to assess the welfare impact of the pandemic.