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Author: Razvan Bondalici

Critical thinking against populism

From year to year, the Ukrainian society has been waiting for substantial transformations in the country, which would improve the standard of living. However, people often do not support the reforms, which could contribute to the quality of life. This happens mainly because many Ukrainians are sensitive to populism.

Populists act against the reforms and often receive wide support. They use manipulations, stereotypes and cognitive biases to promote ideas aimed at preserving their status quo or getting benefits for small groups at the expense of long-term interests of the whole society.

The project “Critical Thinking Against Populism” was initiated by the Center for Economic Strategy. The project targeted the most common populist stereotypes in the five reforms that have been identified as high-priority areas by the government and international donors: land reform, pension reform, education reform, health reform, and privatization.

The main project goal is to promote reforms and anti-corruption initiatives, and fight populism by developing and implementing an effective advocacy campaign based on the principles of critical thinking.

 

 

A representative survey of Ukrainian citizens was conducted by GfK Ukraine in order to find out what risks people are most afraid of when thinking about the reforms. We evaluated whether those risks are stereotypes or threats that should be effectively addressed when correcting the implementation of the reforms or when communicating them to the public.

The research provides the following data for each of the reforms:
• evaluation of public awareness of the essence of the reforms,
• degree of overall public support,
• support of the key components of the reforms proposed by the government,
• assessment of risks’ probability.

Critical thinking tools for counteracting populist biases

The survey was conducted via random dialling the mobile telephone numbers (according to the face-to-face surveys, 92% of Ukrainians use mobile phones). Unlike face-to-face surveys, this method provides the pure random sample and reaches active educated citizens better than face-to-face interviewing method (because active educated citizens more often live in inaccessible apartments for interviewers and can be more rarely found at home comparing to the rest of the population). The sample is representative to the adult population of Ukraine by gender, age, region of residence and the size of the settlement according to State Statistics Service of Ukraine data as of 1.01.2017 (excluding the occupied and uncontrolled government territories). The maximum theoretical sample error is 2.2%.

As a result of the project, the Ukrainian public acquired critical thinking tools to counteract populist biases, fostering broader support of reforms and anti-corruption initiatives undertaken by the Ukrainian government.

As a result of the performed activities:

·     The ministers and their staffers, the office of Prime Minister and Reform Support Office have received key messages and analytical toolkits based on the principles of critical thinking to be used for the communication strategies for promoting reforms in education, healthcare, pension, land and privatization;

·     Experts and civil activists have acquired critical thinking tools for counteracting populist biases by distinguishing between the facts and manipulative statements;

·     National and regional media acquired anti-populist arguments for dissemination among the general public;

·     Key reforms and anti-corruption initiatives have gained a broader support base among the general public.

 

*The survey was conducted by GfK Ukraine using telephone interviews and focus groups in July-September 2017.

About the Authors:

Tamila Konoplytska, Senior Researcher at GFK Ukraine

Inna Volosevych, Head of Social and Political Research Department at GFK Ukraine

 

My experience of being a first time traveller and alone!

Blog-post from Esther Tot, who received the ESOMAR Foundation Scholarship to study at the English based Bachelor Degree program in International Business at the National University of Management (NUM) in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

This is how my new chapter of 2018 began! On January 8th I won a SHARE Scholarship to study in Myanmar for one semester and I have been there for three months from January 8th 2018 until April 4th 2018, which is the day I left, and I wish I could have stayed longer!

That is where God created a new chapter for my life on New Year Eve. I couldn’t be more thankful to him and everyone who leads my way including my family, my teachers, all the people who are working at the ESOMAR Foundation and WIRE who helped me reach one of my wishes that is to at least travel once in my life. But now after my first experience I actually want some more. This reminds me  of my teacher Ms. Kerry Slattery who once told me that you get addicted when you have traveled once! It’s never enough because that experience is changing you in some way like being more cheerful and happy in life, you meet new people and make new friends and your life would never be the same without making new friends and experience new things.

From that persuasive phrase from my teacher I started to view life from a different perspective. Then lately I started questioning myself, what is life without moving? It’s nothing without moving because you will be stuck in the same place, same zone, and probably your comfort zone. This experience has changed my thoughts and my perspective, as well as my view from being pessimistic and become more optimistic. Honestly, this is the first time that I really broke out of my comfort zone and stepped into a real world. Travelling alone is the scariest thing I decided to do and would like to thank my mom and my family for supporting me to reach my goal. Travelling alone at just 19 years of age has built up my confidence to step out of my comfort-zone and explore my life. These 3 months have been amazing and more than what I had expected!

During these 3 months I met new people, made new friends, and I survived in my new environment even though there were some difficulties at first with the foods texture, ingredients, and smell. I ate both Myanmar food as well as Indonesian food as I was staying with Indonesian students and they were like siblings to me. They always cooked me Indonesian food and I was quite ashamed as I rarely cooked for them any Khmer food (Cambodian food) as our ingredients are rare and hard to find in there even though we are Asian, but we are not the same because we are unique in our own ways.

It was more interesting when it came to religion because in Myanmar it is allowed to embrace many religions. I have now many friends from different religions such as Baptists, Catholic, Buddhists, Muslims. It is quite interesting to get to know and understand and observe the inner behavior of each of my friends from different places and different religions and different languages. This experience has been an important part of my exploring.

During those 3 months I haven’t really stayed in contacted with my family or friends in Cambodia because the Internet connection was really bad, so I wasn’t able to call home often and haven’t really kept up with what’s going on in social media, but it was a nice experience being able to stay away from social media and really connected to people around me physically. I’ve been spending time with my Burmese, Indonesian, Korean, and American friends, discussed about our experiences and exchanged our knowledge, we ate dinner together and cooked for each other and went out and explored Myanmar together which helped make me make new friends almost every day.

On the other hand, I want to talk about the difference between Cambodia and Myanmar in the way people worship Buddhism.  In Myanmar I have seen people going to pagodas to worship their gods everyday as we all know that Myanmar has thousands of temples. In  Cambodia people don’t go to worship in Buddhist temples everyday. I have a relative who practices Buddhism so I learned a little about this fact as I see my relative go to temple to worship his gods only on what is called the “holy day” or on special occasions such as Khmer New Year, Pchum Ben, or Visak Bochea Day and many other days, but as I have mentioned above that it is not every day as in Myanmar. It is my own observation and experience so only if you experienced it yourself you would know what I am saying is true or false, but based on my own experience I can prove myself 75% right at this point. Anyway, this is not about making a declamation about religion; it is just what I have learned from being there which helped benefit my knowledge in observation and understanding and seeing something different from my own country.

People in Myanmar speak many of their own ethnic languages which I can’t understand but I could still communicate (half of the Burmese now can speak a little English including some taxi drivers and food sellers at the supermarket). It is amazing how sometimes me and my Indonesian friends walked across the local food stores and the sellers were not able to speak English, but we could still communicate and buy food by using our body language and we have even learned a little Burmese! To pay we usually opened our phone calculator for the seller to type the price (because it is a local food shop, street food so there is no price tag). When I look back at those moments I feel amazing and proud of all people who are able to communicate to each other no matter how hard it is and this is the amazing fact about our human being that I admire most.

Lastly, I would describe Myanmar as an amazing country even though it has been through a hardship of political background and damaged but it never gave up and it keeps on growing and developing. I am full of admiration of the country and the people. They are so friendly and so hospitable and food is somehow delicious. The thing that I love most is the beauty of their nature. In some places it is the best thing I have ever seen!

I would like to recommend anyone who would like to visit Myanmar, to go to Mandalay, Bagan, Shan State (Innlay Lake, where they speak a language similar to Thai), Yangon, Chin State, and if possible also Kachin State  but a little dangerous as there is a conflict still going on and a small war in that region, so better do some research about the situation first before heading to visit there, but it is such a nice place. I have friends who live there and they told me that they also have snow in December. This place is on my bucket list and I definitely want to visit there some day not just for the snow but for many other beauty of nature they have there, including the Heart Shape Lake (can research in Google), some of the other beaches site which are really, really wonderful.

For this truly amazing experience I would like to thank the ESOMAR Foundation and WIRE who sponsor me in the first place to be able to study at National University of Management and so I could apply for the SHARE Scholarship to go to Myanmar. I would also like to thank all the teachers who helped lead the way. Without all of you I wouldn’t have had such an amazing experience. Thanks everyone so much for helping me to accomplish my education and help me chase my dream and get a better life. I really appreciate everyone and everything, and thanks God for everything.

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Annual Report 2017 is out!

We are pleased to share the Annual Report and Financial Statement 2017 of the ESOMAR Foundation.

In 2017 the Foundation strengthened several activities and enjoyed an increase in awareness and support from the industry and beyond. These developments provide a promising outlook for the future. The Foundation can continue to execute its activities in partnership with the many stakeholders who have provided both financial support and expertise and will hopefully continue to do so in the years to come.

As charity arm of ESOMAR, the global industry association of Market, Social and Opinion research, we have continued to benefit from the ESOMAR Council and the Supervisory Board support. The ESOMAR Foundation is on the right path of executing its mission “to use the skills, knowledge and support of the industry to do social good”.

Results so far are encouraging! With the help of our wonderful industry, we look forward to continuing to grow and achieve even better results in the years to come!

A special Thank You!

Without the generous help and support of the many volunteers, sponsors, friends, ambassadors and partners, the ESOMAR Foundation could not survive! So, we would like to take this opportunity to warmly and sincerely THANK YOU ALL for ensuring that together we can pursue our mission of contributing to a better world.

 

The use of Qualitative Research by Non-Profit Organisations

May kicked off with the first webinar of the series How can Qualitative Research support and inform a Non-Profit Organisation’s aims and objectives?  Speaker Sven Arn took insights from the research industry and explained how to address and understand different types of Donors.

 

It was fantastic to be a part of the kick-off for a new series of webinars set up by the ESOMAR Foundation to help and encourage non-profit organisations to use qualitative research. In our piece we focused on how principles of commercial marketing thinking (like the customer journey) can be translated effectively for non-profits for their communication with the general public and donors.

My co-speaker, Sonia Whitehead from BBC Media Action spoke about how qualitative research is used in actual development projects. Showing that qualitative approaches can be applicable in many different areas of non-profit activity.

Research for non-profit organisations, however, has its own particular set of challenges. These include

  1. Non-profits are driven by their principles and aims rather than by commerce so the very nature of ‘consumer’ research itself may be questioned.
  2. Because they are focused on effectiveness of their activities, they tend to be quite numbers driven and thus less inclined to use qualitative research.
  3. From the donor perspective, the concern that money is being spent on non-essentials rather than going to the projects and people that need it.

In the webinar we talked about how qualitative research can be an excellent reality check and lead to better decisions when it comes to addressing donors. In our experience we have often seen it invaluable in finding that fine line between creating reaction through impactful (and sometimes controversial) messaging rather than reactance.

Adjust claims using qual. research to better reach your target audience

In a recent project we conducted for a conservation organisation, we explored different claims that the organization is planning to introduce to support a new communications strategy. A small quantitative pre-check helped to separate out the strongest three claims, but it was only through qualitative research that we could understand which of the claims had the strongest potential to engage the audience.

Using storytelling research techniques we could explore how the claims worked in reassuring donors that their donation could really make a difference. This does not happen when communication is too optimistic and positive – but is equally endangered if the messaging is too drastic.

Qualitative research offers fantastic possibilities to explore individual reactions but also to set these in a social context. There is something fundamentally social in the relationship that people have with the non-profits they support, but the decision to become a donor is very personal. With qualitative research you can look at both sides of the donor experience and this can be invaluable in optimizing communication and messaging.

Methodologically there are a few considerations to bear in mind. First and foremost, it is important to get research participants on board. Careful explanation is required to avoid perceptions that money is not being wisely spent. This can elegantly be offset (and costs reduced) by offering participants the possibility to donate their incentives.

Traditional qualitative methods like focus groups can be a quick and easy way of exploring the audience’s perceptions and gauging reactions to ideas. Newer, collaborative methods such as co-creation sessions and online communities an excellent way to develop ideas and to engage different audiences and internal stakeholders. It also gives internal audiences a real sense of the point of view of the general public.

One thing we have learnt in translating marketing principles to the non-profit world is that these organisations need to engage fast and emotionally. The decision to support an organisation does not usually come from carefully considered reflection but is made relatively spontaneously.

In summary, qualitative research provides extremely valuable ways of identifying how to achieve this connection.

About the author

Sven Arn is Managing Director and Partner at Happy Thinking People in Germany. He has been with the company since 1991 and became Managing Director in 1997. His research focus is in international and cross-cultural research with a specific expertise in insight development, positioning and brand strategy.

Missed out the presentation? You can still check it here.

Interested to learn more about the topic? Join us for the next webinar!

Awareness of human trafficking risks among vulnerable children and youth in Ukraine

Ukraine is a country of origin, transit and destination for trafficking of men, women and children.

According to the research commissioned by the International Organization for Migration mission in Ukraine and conducted by GfK Ukraine, over 230,000 Ukrainians have become victims of human trafficking since 1991. It makes Ukraine one of the main countries of origin of trafficking of human beings in Europe. Internal trafficking is also a growing problem. The number of human trafficking victims increased as a result of the war in the East of Ukraine.

The survey aimed to define the vulnerability and the level of awareness of human trafficking among nine groups of children and youth in Ukraine. The survey covered children in difficult life circumstances and orphans; children from foster families and family-type homes; children displaced from the conflict zone in the East of Ukraine; children with special needs; homeless children; young people detained in penitentiaries; and youth of vocational schools. The most numerous group was the youth at vocational schools (315,600 persons), while the youth in penitentiaries was the least numerous (217 persons).

Forty (40%) per cent of vulnerable minors from 13 to 17 are ready to accept at least one offer that may lead to their involvement in human trafficking.

The survey was conducted via a face-to-face interview method. 2,079 children and young people were surveyed. GfK Ukraine gathered statistics on the number and distribution of each group of children and built the sample accordingly.

Six indicators of awareness of human trafficking and vulnerability were designed and calculated: awareness of the human trafficking forms; estimation of the risk to get involved in human trafficking; propensity to risky behaviour; the level of dangers of the social environment; awareness of safeguards against human trafficking; awareness of where to address if got involved in human trafficking.

The most disturbing results showed the indicator of propensity to risky behaviour. Children were asked whether they would accept different risky proposals from relatives, friends, neighbours, teachers, strangers, etc. 40% of vulnerable minors from 13 to 17 are ready to accept at least one offer that may lead to their involvement in human trafficking. The youth in penitentiaries are the most inclined to accept risky proposals (72%). Children would be most inclined to accept the proposal to work without official employment in Ukraine, to try drugs, to get in a stranger’s car, to go to strangers’ homes, or to undertake suspicious or illegal work that is well paid.

Support and involvement of public figures and the civil society

The survey has a great impact on the counter-trafficking activities in Ukraine either on national level, or on local one. According to the results of the survey, IOM Mission in Ukraine developed the strategy for counter-trafficking (CT) awareness-raising campaigns, including a public service announcement (PSA) on trafficking in persons filmed in 2017 with a famous Ukrainian singer, winner of Eurovision 2016 – Jamala, which is an integral part of the National Counter-Trafficking Information Campaign “Danger Might Be Invisible at First in Ukraine”.

IOM partner NGOs used the data on the level of children’s vulnerability to human trafficking for local advocacy and prevention initiatives, including the campaign aimed to strengthen the National Referral Mechanism for Assisting Victims of Trafficking in every oblast of Ukraine.

Impact data

IOM implements a variety of human trafficking prevention activities. To improve the existing counter-trafficking practice, it conducted specific surveys on a regular basis to identify the most vulnerable and at-risk populations. Taking into consideration the results of the commissioned survey, IOM supported NGO small-grant projects in every oblasts of Ukraine focused on targeted awareness increase and prevention work among the identified key vulnerable groups of children and youth with the highest risks of human trafficking. As a result of these projects, more than 63,000 vulnerable children and youth increased their knowledge of various types of human trafficking and basic rules of safe migration and employment.

In 2018, the second wave of the survey will be conducted by GfK Ukraine.

* The survey was conducted in December 2015 by GfK Ukraine for IOM and covered all oblasts of Ukraine except for territories of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts that are not under the control of the Ukrainian government and AR Crimea.

About the Author:

Tamila Konoplytska, Senior Researcher at GFK Ukraine

Inna Volosevych, Head of Social and Political Research Department at GFK Ukraine

What different Qualitative Approaches can be used to achieve various objectives?

The ESOMAR Foundation continues the series “How can Qualitative Research support and inform a Non-Profit Organisation’s aims and objectives?” with a new webinar. The second webinar of the series will identify and tackle different Qualitative Approaches that can be used to achieve various objectives. The online event will take place on 26th of July.

The ESOMAR Foundation is embracing qualitative methods as a means to improve the impact of NGO’s. With the knowledge and support of the many qualified researchers in this discipline, the ESOMAR Foundation wants to build an offer of online training webinars to advance knowledge of NGO’s in this discipline and to showcase the outcome of great research.

An overview of the different qualitative approaches

One of the things that non-researchers can find confusing is to understand the different qualitative techniques and what they are best used for.

–        When exactly should you use depth interviews versus a focus group?

–        What is the difference between ethnographic research and qualitative research? And when is ethnographic research appropriate?

–        And if qualitative research is about ‘really’ understanding people through observing body language and identifying unspoken triggers and drivers … how can it be done properly online? When is it appropriate to do qualitative research online?

Experts from the NFP world and market research agencies will share their experience of using ethnography to bring to life the situation (e.g.) Street Invest’s work to change donors and the public’s perception of and attitude to Street Children. Of using Focus Groups and In-depth interviews to develop the actual communications and get the best out of media strategy. Aiming to make the best of online qualitative approaches.

 

TO JOIN THE WEBINAR PLEASE REGISTER HERE!