Generating Evidence on the Effect of Cash Relief on Local Markets Semi-Annual Report 1 April 2020 to 30 September 2020

The project's main objective is to generate evidence on factors that influence local vendors' capacity to participate in commercial activity in crisis-affected markets, including the effect of humanitarian assistance delivered through unrestricted cash and vouchers. The project team focused on qualitative analysis, quantitative analysis, and the development of initial findings and related outputs during this reporting period. Key achievements include coding, analyzing, and interpreting the large qualitative data set from the second round of data collection in Chad; analyzing the quantitative data and writing up findings for the quantitative tool guidance document; preparing for follow-up focus group discussions in Chad; and preparing for a webinar to disseminate selected findings. The project's indicators include the number of BNFs (Beneficiary Needs Form) targeted, direct and indirect beneficiaries, and the number of special studies, program evaluations, applied research activities, sector assessments, or feasibility studies completed and disseminated among relevant stakeholders. However, no progress was made in achieving these indicators during this reporting period. The project's main grant outcome areas include establishing a set of indicators to measure vendor health in market places, establishing whether and to what extent cash and voucher assistance affects vendors in a market place, and developing evidence-based guidance on how to design market support interventions to complement cash and/or voucher programming. In Activity 1, the team continued working on a guidance note to accompany the quantitative tool, which includes information on where to use open-ended versus close-ended questions, how to construct scales from the different sections of the tool, and revisions that could strengthen scale construction for future and past business investments. The team also received an 11-month and 29-day no-cost extension to pilot the quantitative tool in a second country due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In Activity 2, the team analyzed the quantitative data using Stata 16 and drafted initial findings and recommendations for the guidance note. The qualitative data from the second round of data collection in Chad was uploaded to Dedoose, an online platform for qualitative analysis, and two members of the research team independently coded the responses to each question. The research team then analyzed the codes in each section of questions, where possible identifying themes in the data. The findings from the second round of data collection indicate that the business environment and overall business health seemed to have deteriorated somewhat between the two rounds, perhaps from the prolonged effect of the Nigerian border closure and possibly also from the initial shockwaves from the COVID-19 pandemic. Some of the main updates to the round one analysis, based on the round two analysis to date, include the positive effects of cash programming on vendors, the challenges faced by women vendors, and the importance of support to market infrastructure. The project team prepared to conduct a small number of focus group discussions in Chad to cross-check and support the interpretation of the key findings from the research. The focus group discussions are intended to help the research team better understand macro-level trends in the overall crisis context in the Lake Region and to develop a more nuanced understanding of vendors' preferences for how different types of humanitarian interventions should be designed. The project team also prepared to present some of the initial research findings at the 2020 SEEP Conference, which aims to encourage attendees to consider the value and design of market support and market development programming from the perspectives of market actors. The session is scheduled for October 30th and will emphasize the basic but important ideas that retailers and wholesalers face different types of challenges in running a business and experience crises differently, and that though cash and voucher assistance, and cash in particular, has a generally positive effect on markets, the benefit to individual businesses is often rather minimal.