VIETNAM HIGH-FREQUENCY MONITORING SURVEY OF COVID-19 IMPACTS ON HOUSEHOLD WELFARE AND HOUSEHOLD BUSINESSACTIVITIES

Client: The World Bank

Time: 6/2020 – 10/2020

Overview:

Since its initial outbreak in December 2019, COVID-19 has quickly spread across the world to become a pandemic and caused a global health crisis. Measures to contain the spread of a pandemic, such as social displacement, restrictions on movement, closure of schools and businesses, etc. have had great impacts on the economies of countries around the world.

Although until now, at the macro-economic level, Vietnam remains relatively resilient with a reported GDP growth rate of 3.8 percent in the first quarter of 2020 (albeit lowest in 11 years), the impact of the ongoing COVID-19 crisis is hard to predict, given the uncertainty surrounding its magnitude and duration.6 Thus, an ongoing monitoring of the impacts of COVID-19 on households and business is essential, especially for early detection of the negative impacts of COVID-19 on households with different characteristics regarding the income distribution, across geographies and different ethnic groups. This monitoring is crucial to timely inform the government and international agencies to take action in aiding households and business through the economic crisis triggered by COVID-19.

Arising from this need, the World Bank has commissioned the Mekong Development Institute to carry out a High Frequency Phone Survey (HFPS) to collect and provide data to the government and development partners in near real-time, thus supporting an evidence-based response to the crisis.

The information on each survey round is as follows:

Main tasks:

• Developing and finalising survey tools
• Recruiting and training enumerators
• Implementing data collection through phone
• Data cleaning and quality control
• Writing survey progress report