COVID-19 Impact monitoring Burkina Faso Internally Displaced Persons Bulletin No.3 — July 2021 KEY MESSAGES • During the three months of the survey of the survey, the most ex- treme behavioral responses to food insecurity generally de- creased, yet one in three internally displaced people (IDPs) skipped meals regularly - a rate three times higher than the nation- al average. • Employment rates steadily improved for both IDPs and the nation- al households as a whole, particularly in rural areas (from 52.2 percent in May to 72.1 percent in July for IDPs), likely as a result of the onset of the planting season. • The agricultural sector, which employs the largest share of the labor force, was not the most important source of income respond- ents indicated. For both the IDP households and non-displaced revenue from non-farm business was the most important source of income (29 and 33 percent, respectively). Assistance from family or non-family members was also significant, particularly for IDP households (24 percent). • IDPs were acutely affected by the economic slow-down resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic. Nearly sixty percent of IDP-households experienced a decrease in their income over the past 12 months, compared to 43 percent for non -IDPs households. Camps may have provided some protection as IDPs living there were far less likely to report a decrease in total income over the past year than IDPs living out of camps. • IDP households were far more likely to receive transfers. Free food was, by far, the most common (42 percent), followed by direct mon- ey transfers (16 percent). Government agencies, together with Non -Government Organizations (NGOs), and international organizations provided nearly all of this assistance. • IDP children face more challenges than their peers. Their caregivers interact less with them in meaningful activities children who are not displaced. Very few households (only 22 percent) spent any time reading or looking at picture books with children aged 2 -10, but this is still twice the rate that IDP households read to their children (10.7 percent). • The use of information and communication technology for learning was low for the country as a whole and was almost nonexistent for IDPs. Only 15 percent of non-IDP households with school age children used television for learning - a rate five times higher than that of IDP households. CONTEXT This brief presents the results from the third (and final) round of High Frequency Phone Surveys on Internally Displaced People (IDPs) in Burkina Faso, conducted between June 28 and July 20, 2021, concurrently with the eleventh round of surveys on the general national sample. The survey was designed to assess the socioeconomic experience of these households during the Covid-19 pandemic. As the survey was conducted concurrently on IDP sample and the nationally population, by making inferences on differences, we avoid the challenge of temporal inconsistency when interpreting the results. The CONASUR1 database, an administrative dataset that is continuously updated by the government of Burkina Faso and is intended to be a complete list of all IDPs in the country, was used as the sampling frame from which a random sample was drawn. A total of 1,107 households were targeted in this round. 1,043 households were successfully interviewed, yielding a response rate of 94.22 percent. The Enquête Harmonisée sur le Conditions de Vie des Ménages 2018/19 (EHCVM) 2 was used as the frame for the national sample, and the survey was successfully conducted for 1,924 households 3. For both sub-populations, sample weights were adjusted to allow for non-response4 in order to make the samples as representative as possible. In this brief, the “IDP sample” refers to respondents drawn from the CONASUR sample; the “national sample” refers to the respondents drawn from the EHCVM sample (as it is representative of the population as of 2018/19, it may include some households – 3.10 percent - who were then or have since been displaced). 1 http://www.conasur.gov.bf/ 2 https://phmecv.uemoa.int/ 3 https://microdata.worldbank.org/index.php/catalog/3768 4 https://microdata.worldbank.org/index.php/catalog/4481/download/53414 Burkina Faso • COVID-19 IMPACT MONITORING - IDP Table 1: Sample distribution, July 2021 round The IDP sample does not include any households from the area of Ouagadougou because less than one percent of the IDPs included in the National IDP CONASUR frame were living in Ouagadougou when the sample was drawn. Ouagadougou 16.4 - Consequently, to ensure appropriate comparability of the statistics with the Other urban 15.7 55.9 overall national sample which includes the stratum of Ouagadougou, the Rural 67.9 44.1 statistics for urban subsamples give averages for urban IDPs (which don’t have any households in Ouagadougou, urban non-Ouagadougou strata from Male respondents 81.5 65.6 the national (EHCVM) sample, and the Ouagadougou stratum from the natio- Female respondents 18.5 34.4 nal (EHCVM) sample. (see Table 1 and Table 2) Male headed households 86.5 74.9 The main modules administered during this round of data collection included Female headed households 13.5 25.1 basic food items and food security; employment (with a focus on agricultural In Camp - 21.4 activities); other revenues; social safety nets; and caregiving for early Out of Camp - 78.6 childhood development. Table 2: Distribution of IDP Sample, July 2021 round Male Female Male Female In Out of headed headed Urban Rural respondents respondents Camp Camp households households Male respondents 87.5 0.3 65.7 65.6 62.3 66.0 Female respondents 12.5 99.7 34.4 34.4 37.7 34.0 Male headed households 99.9 27.3 76.0 73.6 68.7 75.8 Female headed households 0.1 72.7 24.0 26.4 31.3 24.2 Urban 55.9 55.9 56.7 53.6 45.7 59.1 Rural 44.1 44.2 43.3 46.4 54.3 40.9 In Camp 20.4 23.2 19.8 26.1 17.4 26.5 Out of camp 79.6 76.8 80.3 74.0 82.6 73.5 FOOD SECURITY Food security continues to be a concern in Burkina Figure 1: Households skipping meals or eating less Faso; particularly the coping strategies of house- holds that eat less or skip meals during the lean season which runs from July-September. These drastic behavioral res- ponses to a lack of food during the pandemic are concerning. Although the share who reported skipping a meal steadily decreased over the duration of the survey, IDP households are roughly three times more likely to be taking this extreme step. Concurrently, IDPs are far more likely to report not ea- ting as much as they thought they should – the difference in the two groups was 30 percentage points in July (Figure 1). The better food access and food insecurity scores of those in rural areas observed in the data (not shown) mask the fact that these rural households, particularly displaced rural households, are more likely to engage in detrimental coping strategies by skipping meals or not eating enough. EMPLOYMENT Although the employment rate in July 2021 for the Figure 2: July 2021 employment rate, by subpopulation national sample was fairly consistent for urban, rural and male populations at 90-91 percent, there was a clear hie- rarchy of employment status for IDPs (Figure 2): rural IDPs were most likely to be employed (72.1 percent) compared to urban IDPs (62 percent). Female and urban IDPs had the same likelihood of employment (about 62 percent). The em- ployment gap between male and female IDP respondents (68.7 percent versus 62.2 percent) in July 2021 was compa- rable to the male-female gap for the national sample (89.9 percent versus 84.8 percent). The employment rate for the out of camp IDPs at this time was not significantly different to in camp IDPs (68.3 and 66.1 percent respectively, not shown). 2 Burkina Faso • COVID-19 IMPACT MONITORING – IDP SOURCE OF INCOME While agriculture is the most important sector of employment for Burkinabè households generally, this sector is less im- portant for internally displaced Burkinabè. There are three probable reasons: first, a lesser share of IDPs are engaged in agriculture (82 percent of the national rural sample were employed in agriculture, compared to just 57 percent of employed rural IDPs – not shown here); second, food produced by agriculture in Burkina Faso is mainly used for own consumption (see Figure 4); and third, because the July round was conducted towards the end of planting activities, the survey did not capture revenue from the sale of agricultural products. Even so, the economic slowdown resulting from Covid-19 caused a reduction in total income for most of IDP households (Figure 3). Nearly six in ten displaced households reported that their income decreased over the year prior to the survey (43 percent for Figure 3: Total household income compared to the same period in the previous year non-IDP households), and only 22 percent ex- perienced an increase of total income (compared to 29 percent for non- displaced households). Importantly, income re- duction was more com- mon for IDPs living out of camps (63 percent, com- pared to 42 percent for IDPs living in camps). AGRICULTURE The July survey round occurred towards Figure 4: Share of households producing by agriculture for own con- the end of planting activities thus addi- sumption only tional information about the characteristics and challenges faced by farmers was collected. Alt- hough owning a family farm is very common in the country as a whole (70 percent overall and 94 in rural areas, not shown here), the likelihood of IDP households owning a farm is much lower (37 per- cent, 53 percent in rural areas, 44 and 34 for in camp and out of camp). As observed in Figure 4, agriculture in Burkina Faso is intended mainly for own consumption and does not represent a source of income for many households. This is particularly true for displaced households: 93 percent of IDP households that grow food do so solely for their own consumption, Figure 5: Issues faced during the current agricultural season compared to 60 percent for the general Burkinabe population. IDP households living out of camps were even more likely to produce food solely for their own consumption (96 percent versus 90 per- cent for camp IDP households). Although the gen- der of the household head is an important driver of own consumption of food produced by agriculture for the general population, there aren’t significant gender differences in this regard for internally dis- placed households. The share of households that faced challenges during the current agricultural season is higher for the general population, whose had more difficulty acquiring inputs (fertilizers, in particular) and faced more delays in planting activities (51 and 24 per- cent, respectively) (Figure 5), than IDPs. While these issues are also relevant for IDP households, movement restrictions, mainly related to insecurity reasons, was the main issue faced by IDP farmers in deploying normal agricultural activities. 3 Burkina Faso • COVID-19 IMPACT MONITORING - IDP SOCIAL PROTECTION The share of IDP households Figure 6: Share of households that received assistance in the last two months receiving transfers from the government or other entities dwarfs that of the national population. For IDPs, free food is by far the most im- portant source of assistance (42 per- cent), followed by direct money trans- fers (16 percent). There are no signifi- cant differences between in camp and out of camp IDP households (Figure 6). Figure 7: Sources of assistance for IDPs households Government interventions repre- sent the most frequent source of IDP assistance (40 percent) (Figure 7), particularly for IDP households living out of camps (45 percent). IDPs in camps receive assistance mainly from NGOs (47 percent) and international organi- zations (29 percent). Assistance from community or religious bodies is minimal for all subgroups. EARLY CHILD DEVELOPMENT One important feature of the July round was to examine the components of early child development and, in particular, the channels through which learning (educational content) could be accessed for children between two to ten years old. The Figure 8: Gender of the main caregivers survey asked households with children aged two to ten years several questions about the characteristics of the main caregiver, their engagement with educational content, and support to children at home. The results for the IDP sample from July 2021 round are com- pared with the results from March 2021 for national non-IDP sample. As might be expected, the analysis shows that, in gen- eral, caregivers of children aged two to ten years are female (Figure 8) in both IDP and non-IDP households (73.0 and 71.2 percent, respectively), but especially in rural IDP households (77.3 percent). These caregivers are concentrated in the 25-34 (29.1 and 31.5 percent) and 35-44 (26.1 and 28.2 percent) age groups for both IDP and non-IDP households (not shown here), alt- hough the share of caregivers in the age groups’ ex- tremes (below 15 and above 65) is higher for IDP households (19.8 and 8.4 percent for IDPs below 15 and above 65, compared to 10.5 and 5.7 for non-IDPs). People who care for children on a daily basis interact with them in several ways (Figure 9). Two types of interaction dominate: (i) caregivers interacting with the child by spending a good proportion of time playing with children; (ii) bringing children out of the house. In particular, playing is by far the most common activity for both IDP and non -IDP households, irrespective of the area where they live. Very few households read to their children, but this is twice as likely to occur in the general population than for the IDP sample (22.0 and 10.7 percent, respectively). However, IDPs are also nearly ten percentage points more likely to tell sto- ries to their children (45.9 versus 36.5 percent). 4 Burkina Faso • COVID-19 IMPACT MONITORING - IDP Figure 9: Activities done by the main caregiver with children In aggregate, the general population engages in more child learning activities than the IDP population (2.8 and 2.5 per household), a difference that persists for both urban and rural groups (not shown here). Children in camps are likely to receive more types of caregiver engagement than those out of camps (2.8 and 2.4 activity types). Regarding the tools used for free learning activities (Figure 10), the main difference between IDP households and households nationally is the use of television (used by 14.9 percent of non-IDP households compared to only 2.8 percent of IDP households) and smartphones or tablets (used by 5.2 percent of non-IDP households Figure 10: Use of tools for children learning activities compared to 1.2 percent of IDP households), which probably reflects the difference in the availability of these tools. The use of television is particularly common for national households living in urban areas. On the other hand, IDPs are much more likely to use printed scholastic material and radio (14 versus 9 percent and 11.7 versus 4.7 percent). Computers, as a learning tool, are almost non-existent across the country. Again, probably because very few households have them. This brief was prepared by Marco Tiberti, Clarence Tsimpo Nkengne and Marco Costantini from the World Bank, Harriet Mugera and Jeff Tanner from the WB-UNHCR Joint Data Center on Forced Displacement (JDC) and Zakaria Koncobo from the Institut National de la Statistique et la Demographie (INSD). The team benefitted from the comments by Maja Lazic (UNHCR). The report was prepared with guidance from Bjorn Erik Gillsater (JDC), Johan A. Mistiaen (World Bank), Boureima Ouedraogo and Jean Edouard Odilon Doamba (INSD). The team acknowledges the essential support of CONASUR in providing the sampling frame. 5