iMMAP partnered with RIWI to conduct a web survey in Syria, Bangladesh, and Colombia to gather citizen sentiment about the impacts of COVID-19, and to “provide the wider humanitarian community with timely and comprehensive information on the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic”. Data were collected from July 20th to August 11th, 2021. The survey was offered in Arabic (Syria) and English and Bangla (Bangladesh), and Spanish (Colombia) and over 3,000 people completed the survey in each country. The data provided by RIWI revealed that 42% of respondents in Syria had been forced to leave their home due to conflict, violence, or disasters. Moreover, the survey also revealed that 28% of respondents in Bangladesh received government aid in the form of cash intervention, in comparison to only 7% who reported they received loans from banks. Insights such as the above provide a lens into life in Syria, Bangladesh, and Colombia at the height of the pandemic when the future was unknown and little was certain. RIWI’s methodology allows organizations, like iMMAP, to gain a unique look into data that is otherwise unreachable.
The data highlights the importance of monitoring perceptions in various different sectors throughout the pandemic, whether it is public health or citizen sentiment regarding COVID-19, collecting the information is crucial to implementing data-informed decisions. iMMAP has been using RIWI data to analyze the main concerns and unmet needs that have emerged across humanitarian sectors due to the COVID-19 pandemic since the summer of 2020.
“The key findings of the survey conducted by iMMAP and RIWI gather insight into the role COVID-19 is having on the humanitarian situation in order to better support decision makers”
iMMAP
The graph shown is taken from the report written by iMMAP on the findings in Bangladesh, and aims to demonstrate the various different opinions on vaccine hesitancy.