… and from Somalia, Africa’s Voices (see link below) has a story on a recent survey in Somalia on what the listeners of Radio Imaqal saw as most important for Covid-19 responses:
‘Dear Imaqal Listener, your voice is important for the response to COVID19. What are your thoughts on Coronavirus?’
This message was sent out to 51,000 recipients and responses were collected over the course of a weekend, 3-5 April 2020. 7,747 responded (approximately 15%) with over 18,000 SMS received.
The diagnostic sample is self-selecting, and skewed towards urban and those recently displaced (also youth), but as these are populations of concern, this is still deeply valuable information.
KEY HEADLINE FINDINGS
- Asked for their thoughts on COVID-19 Somali respondents spoke less from a health than from a religious hope/practice standpoint.
- Respondents fall into two broad camps: Those invoking religious hope, practice and guidance as the right way forward (38.7%); those invoking community action aligned to expert/government advice with a “call for right practice” (34.1%).
- The religion frame grows more salient with increasing age; splits evenly between (passive) fate/hope/trust in Allah and (active) devoutness, prayer, offering.
- Younger age groups (notably females) are more likely to advocate for following expert/government advice on right practices.
- Over 1 in 10 respondents expressed thoughts on COVID-19 that involve rumour, stigma or misinformation (12.2%). Over 75% of these respondents expressed negative stigma: hostility, anger or resentment. A message denying coronavirus was over twice as likely to come from a male than a female.
- Recently displaced were significantly more likely to express such thoughts than those who were not. In Banadir (Mogadishu area), recently displaced were twice more likely than host community respondents to express rumour, stigma or misinformation
- Rumour, stigma or misinformation were also more likely from respondents from more insecure areas (due to Al-Shabaab threat) such as Bay and Lower Juba than from Banadir.
Find more detail of the survey here:
