In the WAEMU countries, COVID-19 is expected to affect households in many ways. First, governments might reduce social transfers to households due to the decline in revenue arising from the potential COVID-19 economic recession. Second households deriving income from vulnerable sectors such as tourism and related activities will likely face risk of unemployment or loss of income. Third an increase in prices of imported goods can also negatively impact household welfare, as a direct consequence of the increase of these imported items or as indirect increase of prices of local good manufactured using imported inputs. In this context, there is a need to produce high frequency data to help policy makers in monitoring the channels by which the pandemic affects households and assessing its distributional impact. To do so, the sample of the longitudinal survey will be a sub-sample of the 2018/19 household survey in each country.
For Mali, the survey which is implemented by the National Statistical Office (INSTAT), is conducted using cell phone numbers of household members collected during the 2018/19 survey. This has the advantage of conducting cost effectively welfare analysis without collecting new consumption data. The 35 minutes questionnaires covered 10 modules (knowledge, behavior, access to services, food security, employment, safety nets, shocks, etc…). Data collection is planned for six months (six rounds) and the questionnaire is designed with core modules and rotating modules. Survey data collection started on May 11th, 2020 and households are expected to be called back every three to four weeks.
The main objectives of the survey are to:
• Identify type of households directly or indirectly affected by the pandemic;
• Identify the main channels by which the pandemic affects households;
• Provide relevant data on income and socioeconomic indicators to assess the welfare impact of the pandemic.