During 2015 CIDT Associates Tag McEntegart and Tendayi Kureya, worked with CIDT to produce the first ever Somaliland Government-sanctioned Citizen Perception* Survey and then carried out a second smaller survey to validate two DFID-specific project results.
The work took place under the auspices of the DFID-funded Somaliland Development Fund (SDF), managed by Mott BMB, for whom CIDT is a core contractor. The surveys resulted in two reports and full datasets, presented to the SDF in a timely manner and with excellent reviews. The methods used were innovative for the Government of Somaliland and achieved high praise from the project Director, Michiel Bourgoundien:
“We would like to thank you and your team of CIDT to work with the Somaliland Development Fund on the Perception Survey for the Government of Somaliland. Your team demonstrated flexibility and capacity to bring out the very best from the Ministry-team. Both SDF Secretariat and the Ministry of Planning [Communication Hub and Department of Statistics] were very appreciative of the efforts and professionalism of the CIDT-consultants. We are very sure that they would like to see them coming back in the future”.
The purpose of the citizen perception survey was to “support the Communications Hub at the Ministry of National Planning & Development (MoP&ND) to design, manage and support the conduct of the baseline survey on citizens’ perceptions of Government priorities, activities and expenditure in relation to development issues as defined by the National Development Plan”.
The objectives of the assignment were to:
- Establish credible data that will inform the SDF Communication Strategy in relation to output 4 of the SDF and serve as baseline for the M&E framework: i.e. Output 4.4: Enhanced citizen perception of Government priorities, activities and expenditure
- Establish the first measure of the current status against which achievement benchmarks on public perceptions will be drawn;
This survey was designed as a quantitative perception survey to provide baseline perceptions on some indicators for the Somaliland Development Fund (SDF) results framework with a qualitative element to further deepen portrayal of perceptions. The survey was conducted within three months as a cross-sectional scan of perceptions, and targeted all six regions of the country. The primary focus was the perceptions of citizens of Somaliland who reside in urban, rural and nomadic settings. The survey collected relevant data on perceptions and disaggregated results by these groupings, as well as by wealth, age and gender.
Information was collected to gauge citizens’ perceptions on national development objectives and the delivery of services by government in line with the objectives expressed in the Somaliland NDP, 2012-2016. The results of the survey will, in part, shape the SDF’s interventions around communication and citizen participation.
Using a Capacity Development Approach, the CIDT consultants worked with the Ministry of Planning and National Development (MoP&ND) to select a data collection team, identify enumeration areas, develop a survey questionnaire, work with the team to develop and improve it through participatory workshops, pilot it, collect, clean, upload and analyse perception survey data.
CIDT and the SDF were able swiftly to test the degree to which survey team capacity had been developed during a closely sequential second survey. This came about when, six weeks after the end of the first survey, the same government survey team, from the Communication Hub and Dept of Statistics, undertook high quality data collection and input with promptness and accuracy, giving a robust and credible result for SDF regarding progress on two specific outputs of the SDF logframe: Roads and Infrastructure. It was a satisfying vindication of the CIDT facilitators’ methodology and processes that the team came through this unexpected early test of its increased professionalism with flying colours.
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* Perception is defined as the organization, identification, and interpretation of sensory information in order to represent and understand the environment
