Media Action Insight Blog Feed

Five questions our data portal can help answer

Sonia Whitehead — Tue, 04 Apr 2017 06:00:00 +0000

There's a lack of data on what ordinary people think, feel and want in developing countries. Our new aims to help fix that. Sonia Whitehead runs through five questions the portal can help answer on governance, media and resilience.

The development world is all aflutter about data. There’s much talk of a , the sector’s hiring and the World Bank just launched a to ‘data crunch the world’.

Not to dampen all this excitement but we need a lot more data about people in the Global South before it can become a transformative force there. Addressing this lack of data will speed up progress on everything from to .

Enter our new (view on desktop), which brings together data, reports and visualisations from surveys conducted in 13 developing countries that there aren't a lot of statistics about. Over five years, we asked more than 75,000 (rarely polled) people about what they think, feel and want. The portal covers a range of issues from what they’re most worried about to how interested they are in politics.

We want these insights to help development leaders, practitioners and researchers better understand ordinary people in the developing world so they can produce more effective strategies, projects and communications.

To mark the launch of the portal, we run through five questions that it can help answer on , and , while also showcasing the different types of content available on the portal.

1. What sources of information do people trust?

Being a media organisation, we wanted to know whether people believe what they hear on the airwaves, see on TV and read online. We found that trust levels in radio are universally high, at over 80% in , and , and reaching 90% in .

However, people are more circumspect about the truthfulness of the internet, with the , which is concerning given that say they go online in order to read the news.

To illustrate these (and other) insights into what media people think of different sources of information, we produced a series of visualisations – some of the ones for Kenya are previewed below (media visual available , governance one ):

2. How free do people feel to speak their minds?

We asked people in three Asian countries (, , ), four African countries (, , , ) and the whether they could 'say what they think'. A majority felt at least somewhat free to speak their minds in all but one of the countries: .

But across the eight countries in our , we found that many people don’t feel they can criticise those in charge. Around a third of , , Bangladeshis and ‘feel people like them are free to talk negatively about the government in public’; in and this drops to under one in four.

Nepal is the only place we looked at where a majority (65%) feel at least those in charge. Nigerians are the next most comfortable with openly complaining about their leaders, say they could – though only half that number felt very liberated to do so.

3. Who are the keenest voters?

In six countries, we also asked whether people had voted in the last general election: Bangladesh, Myanmar, Palestine, Sierra Leone, Tanzania and Nigeria.

came out top, with 90% reporting having voted in the last general election, closely followed by at 87% and at 86%. (A quick note – we conducted our Burmese survey in 2016, after the of Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy in 2015.)

Turnout was lowest in and the , where 42% and 45% respectively said they’d cast a ballot in the last national election.

Of course, people don’t just get involved with public life through voting. Meetings, protests, and various forms of communication are all types of political participation. The previewed below shows that while only a small proportion of people have been in touch with government officials, nearly two thirds have teamed up with others in their community to solve a problem.

4. How do people feel about those who are different to them?

Historically, Kenya has been the site of . Yet even against this background, well over 80% of Kenyans and think it's important to and (see below).

In a country with over 100 ethnic groups, believe that peace relies on mutual respect between people from different ethnic, religious and social groups. Similarly in Nigeria – which has wrestled with religious divides – nine tenths of the population believe that people from different backgrounds have ‘’.

However, a large majority of both and feel that some differences between groups are ‘just too difficult to overcome’.

5. How are people adapting to environmental change?

Building on our project – which examined 33,500 people’s everyday experiences of climate change – we’ve more recently asked Tanzanians and Bangladeshis about how they’re coping with changes to the world around them.

In the drought-ridden areas of Dodoma and Morogoro in Tanzania, more people think has decreased than increased over the past ten years. as to whether rainfall is higher or lower than it was a decade ago.

Getting their information predominantly , Tanzanians are making some – though not a lot – of in light of the environmental challenges they face. Popular responses include and .

In Bangladesh, , and are all commonly seen to have increased in the past decade. for getting information about water, food, energy and extreme weather, considerably more so than the radio, newspaper, friends and family.

of the population have changed how they live in response to environmental changes; is the most common way of shaking things up.

In addition to all of the data, the portal also hosts a number of other resources:

For extra guidance on navigating the portal, take a look at our ‘’ section, as well as our ‘’ and ‘’ videos.

Those interested in how we collected the data should refer to the methodologies and questionnaires available on the right-hand sidebar of each of the thematic pages (, , ).

The portal is also home to reports which summarise and analyse data available on the portal. For example, we've produced a exploring how to better connect with the least politically engaged Kenyans. This is just a flavour of what’s to come, similar reports analysing our governance data in other countries will follow in the coming months.

On each thematic page, there are reports and tools to support practitioners to use media for development. For example, we’ve featured the communication toolkit from our project, which includes a on how to talk about climate change in an accessible and engaging way, as well as (with ) for co-creating a communication strategy with partners and your target audience.

is �� Media Action's Head of Research Programmes, overseeing research across Africa, Asia and the Middle East.

What are the challenges facing young people in East Africa?

Alasdair Stuart — Thu, 03 Nov 2016 14:05:48 +0000

Alasdair Stuart shares the challenges faced by young people in Tanzania, Somalia and Kenya and outlines how they themselves think the media can help.

“Life becomes better for just a few – your neighbour owns ten cars but you don’t even own a bicycle.” (Arusha, Tanzania)

“Adults, the government, businessmen and parents have no confidence in us to bring new ideas or trust us in doing thing.” (Puntland, Somalia)

“Extremist groups are an option for some young people because they are fed up with the hardships of life.” (Dar es Salaam, Tanzania)

These are just some of the things young people in East Africa told us when we asked them about the challenges they face. Speaking to over 400 young people over the course of 42 focus group discussions held in Somalia, Kenya and Tanzania, it became clear that they had to contend with an array of difficult feelings, perceptions and environments.

What do young people think are the main obstacles in their lives?

Many young people find themselves caught in a prolonged period of stagnation (‘’) between adolescence and adulthood. They are unable to reach the milestones of adulthood, such as moving out of the parental home, having a secure job, enjoying financial security or being in a position to support a family of their own. Young people told us they struggle to get ahead in life because of unemployment, a lack of access to education, poverty, corruption and nepotism.

Not only do young people feel unable to achieve what society expects of an ‘adult’ or realise their own ambitions, they also feel disenfranchised and frustrated with the political system. They also have the sense that they are largely excluded from decision-making processes, neglected by politicians and unable to do anything to address the issues they face because there are too many barriers in the way. These factors all combine together to fuel a crisis of youth identity.

Within all three countries, there was also evidence of a growing sense of an inter-generational ‘divide’. Young people feel that the older generation deny them access to opportunities, stop them having a say in how society is run and generally look down on them, while some older people view young people as apathetic or ‘trouble-makers’.

Our research also revealed societal divisions that exacerbate feelings of marginalisation and discrimination and fuel ‘us and them’ narratives. For example, young Somalis reported having to navigate a number of divisions, based on tribes, clans and different regional identities (Somaliland, Puntland and South Central). In Tanzania, there were between supporters of the ruling and opposition parties. Kenyans experienced splits along religious, ethnic and tribal lines, with Muslim, Somali and Somali-Kenyan communities feeling marginalised and against.

In addition, young people live in societies in which violence (including criminal violence committed by gangs, political violence, ‘mob justice’ and gender-based violence) is increasingly normal. We were told that violence was common in communities and that young people were frequently exposed to it – and sometimes participated in it.

What solutions are young people pursuing and why?

In such environments – where economic and political opportunities are limited – violence is a ‘way of life’ for some young people. It allows them to carve out an identity and an income, in a context that otherwise frustrates such efforts. Life was seen as so difficult for some young people that their peers understood why they might turn to ‘illegitimate’ means of improving their situation, such as criminal gangs, illegal migration or ‘violent extremist’ groups. These options represented some of the only viable, rational and financially prudent ways of getting ahead.

Interestingly, almost all young people felt that the key reason someone would join a violent extremist group would be either economic (such groups provide ‘employment’ and far greater than is otherwise available) or due to dissatisfaction with the political system. Young males were thought to be more vulnerable to becoming involved in violent extremism than females, as they were seen to place more value on financial security and employment. Religion was not thought to be a significant motivating factor for most East Africans who join an extremist group.

What alternatives do young people think the media can offer?

To an extent, the media contributes to and perpetuates some of the challenges facing young people. Modern communication and global media have created ‘unrealistic’ lifestyle aspirations that many young people feel they fail to meet. Some of those we spoke to also felt that media coverage often lacks balance, scapegoats certain groups and glamorises violence, further worsening the societal divisions and normalisation of violence mentioned above.

The young people we spoke to would like the media to feature positive but realistic role models of young people who have managed to find legitimate routes to success. In a similar vein, they would also like the media to provide useful and practical information to help them take advantage of the opportunities that do exist; for example, by offering advice on their rights, accessing employment support and how to start a business. Ultimately, young people want a media that provides concrete advice, rather than just rhetoric that fails to address the obstacles they face.

They want a media that gives them a voice, helps them to have their concerns addressed and holds leaders accountable for improving their situation. They want the older generation to understand their challenges and involve them in addressing them, and they think the media can play a role in making this happen. Can the media play a role in fulfilling these expectations, and contribute to a more positive future for East African youth? The answer remains to be seen.

Read more:

is a Research Manager at �� Media Action. Alasdair managed the research across East Africa for this project, and currently manages �� Media Action’s portfolio of research across Somalia, Kenya and Zambia.