Since coming to Orissa, Jyoti and I have spent nearly all of our time discussing the survey, its design, Adhikar's needs, and constraints. It has been an arduous process but we have slowly been sorting things out. Admittedly, though at times it has felts like things are getting more muddled rather than clearer. Randomized evaluations are never easy to arrange but there are added logistical problems that come with surveying and delivering a product to migrants and their families. While we plan to survey families at the source (Orissa), the remittance product is delivered at the destination (typically Gujarat). Meanwhile, Adhikar is working under financial and regulatory constraints. The project is barely scraping by and the India's regulations on MFIs taking deposits (remittances are a type of savings) makes Adhikar's program even more vulnerable.
In addition to brainstorming with Adhikar on how they might be able to be financially independent, we are counting on the fact that they will scale-up after we finish our baseline survey so that we can roll out the product as scheduled. In order to make that possible, Jyoti and I quickly realized we would need to work in the district of Nayagarh instead of Ganjam. This has meant that we need to create a new list of villages to sample from and resort out logistics. It was also the reason that we had decided to stay in Bubaneswar.
In order to learn more about Nayagarh, this past weekend I designed two questionnaires. The first, for focus group discussions, focused on historical trends of remittances in village (at Adhikar's request) and the other, an individual survey, sought to determine what the competitive rates for service charges are in the area. This morning we met with Adhikar to begin planning the field visits and by the time we left the office late in the afternoon, it seemed that we would leave tomorrow....
That is until we spoke to Rema and Aparna and they asked me if I would be willing to go to Gujarat to work on a weather insurance project that desperately needs help. I found myself quickly agreeing... before I even knew what I was signing up for. I think that the idea of feeling really useful and completing something was so appealing that I couldn't pass it up. I then spoke to one of the Professors working on the project, Shawn Cole, about some of the details. So there it is. After finishing some work on the remittance project, I am leaving tomorrow (or the next day) for Ahmadabad. More about that soon.
Comments