Delhi sees return to air pollution after clean phase during lockdown

Every winter, Delhi NCR makes headlines with the return of its dreaded pollution season with air quality in the capital and other northern cities rapidly deteriorating to alarming levels.

According to the Delhi-based non-profit Centre for Science and Environment, ‘the key contributors to this smog in Delhi and its vicinity were vehicles; unchecked construction and road dust; garbage burning; burning of paddy residues by farmers in Punjab, Haryana … near-still weather conditions without wind; the onset of winter; and of course, the Diwali firecrackers’.

Over the years, the pollution level in the city of Delhi has gone bad to worse. In fact, as per a study carried out by the World Health Organization (WHO) among 1600 cities, Delhi is the worst of any major cities in the world in terms of air pollution.

Pollution in New Delhi had almost disappeared earlier this year when the government imposed a nationwide lockdown to stop the coronavirus. As public transport was suspended to contain the spread of COVID-19, photographs of Delhi’s usually grey skies tuned azure blue were doing rounds on social media. A study conducted by the Centre for Science and Environment says that Delhi, during that period, had successfully managed to reduce pollution levels by 79%. But the curbs have been lifted since then, and the pollution, and the virus, are now back with a vengeance.

Since November, residents of the Indian capital are enduring one of the worst spells of air pollution in years. Delhi's overall air quality index (AQI), which includes the concentration of PM2.5 particles as well as bigger pollutants, has stayed above 400, on a scale of 500, for five consecutive days, government data showed. The tiny PM2.5 particles can cause cardiovascular and respiratory diseases including lung cancer, and pose a particular risk for people with COVID-19. The number of daily COVID-19 cases has stayed above 6,000 since November, and according to Indian Medical Association, 13 percent of this increase has been estimated to be due to air pollution.

A Harvard University study shows that an increase of only one microgram per cubic meter in PM 2.5 can lead to an 8% increase in the Covid-19 death rate. Another study by six researchers from various European institutes concluded that 17% of India's 1.26 lakh COVID-related deaths could be linked to exposure to air pollution.

A host of factors are responsible for Delhi's worsening air quality, including weather change, stubble burning, emissions from vehicles and factories, dust from roads, and fireworks.

There is a misbelief that stubble burning is the sole factor responsible for the rise in air pollution. But according to The System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting and Research (SAFAR), stubble burning contributes only 16% to Delhi's pollution. In comparison, emissions from vehicles generate PM 2.5 pollutants between 18 and 40%, and dust from roads contributes about 36–66% of PM10 pollutants, as per a study published by the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW) in 2019.

This situation calls for immediate and data-driven measures to reduce and control the spike in air pollution and COVID-19 cases. Apart from policymakers' efforts, behavior change too has become a non-negotiable to lift Delhi out of the current 'very poor' air quality category. Adopting long-term measures like using public transport and energy-efficient vehicles, planting trees, and recycling can help curb emissions of hazardous pollutants and improve the health of many.

Ankita Valecha - Executive-Communications, Sambodhi

Anubrata Basu - Senior Manager - Research & Communications, Sambodhi

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HIV response and the COVID-19 pandemic: Disruptions and Progress

Since the onset of this pandemic, health systems all over the world have become overwhelmed in response to the virus. Patients and health care providers have canceled or postponed many outpatient visits and converted others to telemedicine due to shortages of healthcare resources or the risk of infection. The lockdowns, mainly across parts of Africa, Asia, and Latin America, have raised insurmountable barriers to patients who must travel to obtain diagnoses or drugs. All this adds to the growing narrative about care delays during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Results from a WHO survey show that health services have been partially or completely disrupted in many countries. Imperial College London estimates that HIV, TB, and malaria-related deaths in high burden settings over five years may be increased by up to 10%, 20%, and 36%, respectively, compared to if there were no COVID-19 epidemic. According to another survey by the Global Fund, prevention, testing, and support for people living with HIV are still the most impacted. Nearly 20% of countries are still experiencing a high or very high level of disruption in HIV service delivery.

Globally, it's estimated that more than 36 million people are living with HIV with acute challenges faced by Sub-Saharan Africa and many low- and middle-income countries. Medical advances over the last 30 years have helped transform HIV from a fatal disease into a chronic, manageable condition for many people. According to UNAIDS, there has been a 23% decline in new HIV infections since 2010. WHO reports that in 2019, 68% of adults and 53% of children living with HIV globally were receiving lifelong antiretroviral therapy (ART). A great majority (85%) of pregnant and breastfeeding women living with HIV also received ART, which not only protects their health but also ensures the prevention of HIV transmission to their newborns.

However, progress on the prevention of HIV transmission remains far too slow, with the estimated total number of new infections in 2019 more than three times higher than UNAIDS's 2020 target.

UNAID’S 2020 targets, also known as 90-90-90 targets, aim to bring HIV testing and treatment to the vast majority of people living with HIV by 2020, and to reduce the amount of HIV in their bodies to undetectable levels that will keep them healthy and prevent further spread of the virus.

At the end of 2019, 14 countries had achieved the 73% target, while Eswatini and Switzerland have made the remarkable achievement of surpassing the 2030 targets of 95–95–95, meaning that a minimum of 86% of people living with HIV have suppressed viral loads. Advancement in treatment effectiveness, as well as increases in the number of people who know their status and are on treatment, are reflected in the fact that rates of viral load suppression among all people living with HIV rose by 44% between 2015 and 2019. Additionally, increased access to antiretroviral therapy has averted an estimated 12.1 million AIDS-related deaths since 2010. Yet, despite all these efforts, still, far too many people are dying due to HIV.

One of the major gaps in the HIV response could be the deeply unequal success. Data from 46 countries in sub-Saharan Africa show a positive relationship between HIV prevalence and income disparity. Women and girls of all ages accounted for 59% of new HIV infections in sub-Saharan Africa. Unequal gender norms, limited sense of agency, and reduced access to education and economic resources could be key reasons why women face a higher HIV risk.

The impact of the COVID-19 is severe among people who are socioeconomically disadvantaged and marginalized and among people with underlying medical conditions. Because of this, people with HIV remain especially vulnerable to the pandemic. Recent modelling has estimated that a six-month total disruption of antiretroviral therapy could lead to more than 5,00,000 additional deaths from AIDS-related illnesses (including tuberculosis) in sub- Saharan Africa in 2020–2021. 

Discrimination and stigma associated with HIV also act as barriers in availing HIV prevention services and closing the book on the AIDS epidemic. There is a cyclical relationship between stigma and HIV. People who experience stigma and discrimination are marginalized and made more vulnerable to HIV, while those living with HIV are more vulnerable to experiencing stigma and discrimination.

Data from 35% of countries show that over 50% of people report having discriminatory attitudes towards people living with HIV. Findings from 50 countries indicate that roughly one in every eight people living with HIV is denied health services because of stigma and discrimination.

Various factors are responsible for stigmatizing AIDS patients. Like- HIV is associated with behaviors that some people disapprove of (such as homosexuality, drug use, sex work, or infidelity); HIV is mainly transmitted through sex, which is a taboo subject in some cultures; many believe that HIV infection is the result of personal irresponsibility or moral fault that deserves to be punished.

Stigma promotes discrimination, which negatively impacts the lives of AIDS patients. The discriminatory attitude towards people living with AIDS makes their situation even worse. These people get marginalized, not only from society but from the services they need to protect themselves from HIV. For example, in 2016, 60% of countries in the European Economic Area reported that health care professionals' negative and discriminatory attitudes towards men who have sex with men and people who inject drugs hampered the provision of adequate HIV prevention services for these groups. One study found that patients who reported high stigma levels were over four times more likely to report poor care access. This leads to a higher number of AIDS-related deaths.

Collaborations and partnerships among countries is key to ending the AIDS epidemic. In addition, urgent and concerted efforts are similarly needed to scale up core prevention strategies, invest in data and evidence-driven building systems and focus on eliminating stigma, discrimination and social exclusion.

Ankita Valecha - Executive-Communications, Sambodhi

Anubrata Basu - Senior Manager - Research & Communications, Sambodhi

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Fighting Violence Against Women: Laws, Initiatives and the Shadow Pandemic

Violence against women (VAW) is globally pervasive and the numbers are staggering. A 2013 analysis conducted by WHO found that worldwide, 35 per cent (1 in 3) of women have experienced either physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence or non-partner sexual violence. Most of this violence is intimate partner violence. Data also shows that almost one third (30%) of women who have been in a relationship report that they have experienced some form of physical and/or sexual violence by their intimate partner in their lifetime. Globally, as many as 38% of murders of women are committed by a male intimate partner.

The global prevalence of physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence is the highest in the WHO African, Eastern Mediterranean and South-East Asia Regions, where approximately 37% of ever-partnered women reported having experienced physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence at some point in their lives.

The Asia Foundation’s recent report, “The State of Conflict and Violence in Asia,” finds that gender-based violence is one of the deadliest forms of violence in the region. It often kills more people than armed conflict and other forms of escalated violence that typically receive more attention from policymakers and development actors. Between 2011 and 2015, India recorded over 40,000 dowry-related deaths. This is over 10 times more than the combined fatalities of the Kashmir conflict, the Naxalite rebellion, and Northeast India insurgencies during the same period of time, all genders combined. And dowry-related deaths are only one of many deadly forms of gender-based violence in India.

It’s not that there is any shortage of legislations on VAW in India. In fact, among South Asian countries, India has some of the most extensive laws and a large legal machinery to protect the rights of women.

A few of the earliest measures include the Immoral Traffic Prevention Act, 1956 and the Commission of Sati Prevention Act, passed in 1987. The Dowry Prohibition Act, enacted on May 1, 1961, was intended to prevent the giving or receiving of dowry. The Government of India (GoI) by way of the Criminal Law (Second Amendment) Act, 1983 on December 26, 1983, amended the Indian Penal Code, 1860 (IPC) and inserted a new Section 498(A), which states that if a husband or relative of husband of a woman subjects such woman to cruelty shall be punished with imprisonment for a term which may extend to three years and shall also be liable to fine. Section 174 of the Criminal Procedure Code was amended by the Criminal Law Act, 1983, to provide for investigation by the police of cases of suicide committed by women or death of women occurring in suspicious circumstances within 7 years of marriage. The GoI has also set up anti-dowry cells and mobile police squads in Delhi and other cities. The National Commission for Women (NCW) was set up in 1992 to examine legal safeguards provided by the constitution and other laws and recommend measures for its effective implementation.

India has also been a party to several international human rights conventions addressing violence directed towards women and girls. Of these, the two most directly relevant to the issue of VAW are the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), 1979, and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), 1989. Following the Fourth UN World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995, the GoI took up several measures to ensure the advancement of women’s rights in India. The National Policy on Empowerment of Women adopted in 2001 seeks to review discriminatory laws and establish effective machinery to monitor the delivery of justice to women.

Despite all the efforts, legislations are not being consistently enforced and monitored. Significant gaps in legal frameworks still remain. We are still failing to live up to international obligations and commitments to prevent and address violence against women. Too many perpetrators are not held accountable, and women continue to be re-victimized through the legal process.

COVID-19 seems to have brought about a shadow pandemic of violence against women. Since the outbreak of COVID-19, emerging data and reports from those on the front lines, have shown that all types of violence against women and girls, particularly domestic violence, has intensified. The NCW had in April suggested an almost 100% increase in such incidents during the lockdown as more and more people were staying at home or working from home. Between March 1 and September 18, the NCW has received 4,350 complaints through email, phone and a dedicated WhatsApp number during the period when the country is in the grip of Covid-19 pandemic. The trend showed that the incidents of domestic violence have increased during the Unlock period. The month of July reported the highest number of complaints at 660, followed by June (537) when the Centre started opening up more activities. The number of domestic violence cases could be much more as a large number of cases go unreported while some approach other agencies like police and state women commissions.

It is now being increasingly recognised by policymakers in India as well as globally, that violence against women and girls is a serious constraint to achieving development goals. The concern has prompted innovations that seek to address women’s vulnerability in various arenas.

For example, Thailand’s police department is working on an Artificial Intelligence enabled application called Sis Bot. Sis Bot is a chat bot that can provide 24/7 information services for survivors of violence, accessible through their mobile device or a computer. A woman facing domestic violence can for instance, message the Sis Bot via Facebook Messenger and it will immediately respond with information about how to report to the police, how to preserve evidence, and what support services or compensation they are entitled to by law. At the Centre for Economic Performance (CEP) at LSE, researchers are working on machine-learning systems that analyse existing information, including criminal records, calls made to the police and reported incidents of violence, can identify the risk of repeat incidents more accurately than current standardised questionnaires used by police forces. They suggest that their work could improve the police response to domestic abuse calls.

These initiatives, though encouraging, does not take away from the fact that there is not sufficient evidence on what works in preventing and mitigating gender-based violence in low-income countries and crisis contexts. To improve policies and programmes in the future, the design of GBV initiatives has to incorporate data and impact assessments. What we need now is for organisations and nations to work together in addressing this evidence gap and combat GBV globally.

Anubrata Basu - Senior Manager - Research & Communications, Sambodhi

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Poverty and the Pandemic

When the nationwide lockdown to curb the COVID outbreak was announced in March 2020, Sharda, a sixty-year old woman living in one of India’s six hundred thousand villages, had little to worry about. She owned a farm, and  for years, the farm had been the source of livelihood and food for her family. But a few weeks later, Sharda had still not been able to sell the produce. Lack of harvesters and farm workers had brought farm operations to a standstill. With reducing farmgate prices, Sharda was now looking at months of enormous hardship.

Vipul is a man in his twenties. He lives in an Indian metropolitan with his wife and his nine-month old daughter. Till March 2020, he used to work in one of India’s leading consumer goods company. But in April, as the country entered into lockdown and the economy slowed down, Vipul,  along with several other  workers lost their jobs. With no income in sight and dwindling savings, survival has been difficult for Vipul and others like him.

The stories of Sharda and Vipul are similar to thousands across the world. According to the latest estimates by the World Bank, the COVID -19 pandemic is likely to push between 88 and 115 million people into extreme poverty in 2020, setting back poverty reduction by around three years. A large share of the new poor will be concentrated in countries that are already struggling with high poverty rates, but middle-income countries will also be significantly affected. Almost half of the projected new poor will be in Sub-Saharan Africa, with an additional 16 million in South Asia.

The economic and social impacts of the pandemic may vary across different groups and geographies. In the past, epidemics, such as HIV-AIDS, SARS, H1N1, and Ebola, have shown that the most vulnerable often bear the heaviest burden. There is a good possibility that pre-existing gender gaps have intensified due to the adverse effects of COVID-19, thus widening inequalities and reversing gains. Vulnerable groups such as migrants, refugees, and people with disabilities now face greater challenges in accessing services such as health, education, and infrastructure.

Considering the varying impact of the pandemic on different groups, a once-size-fits-all policy package will just not do. What we need is a set of flexible policy responses complemented with interventions that consider the specific circumstances and needs of the poor and vulnerable. These policy interventions must act to minimize the potentially devastating effects of the outbreak on the welfare  of the vulnerable groups, and to limit long-term consequences that would lead to deeper poverty and inequality traps. 

Effective policymaking and monitoring in a situation that is so rapidly evolving require  that decision-makers  have access to timely and relevant data on both impacts and the effectiveness of policy responses. Data can also be a powerful tool to effect change in policy and attitudes. Governments and philanthropies need to adopt a data-driven  approach to this crisis. We need to put in place systems that can gather real-time data on pandemic impacts and monitor  policy and program implementation. This will also help healthcare providers, researchers, public health departments, and regulators to have comprehensive visibility into near-real-time data that is critical for saving lives.

The end to this pandemic may not be in sight, not yet. But the emergency has shown that the right information used in the right way can help save lives all over the world. In the following months, our ability to communicate vital information in effective ways and drive change, can become our endgame in combating COVID-19.

Anubrata Basu - Senior Manager - Research & Communications, Sambodhi

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Rural women in a changing world

The last decade saw the barriers holding women back became less burdensome. 

We saw the rise of the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements. We witnessed better representation of women in political and corporate stages. We also heard women’s voices rise up in a global chorus, demanding equal rights and choices. 

But these developments, however necessary and desirable, have largely remained confined to urban contexts.

On almost every measure of development, rural women fare worse than rural men or urban women.

Rural women continue to be subjected to stereotypical biases based on cultural beliefs. This, along with the imposition of patriarchal and orthodox boundaries on their choices, create barriers to gender equality.

According to 2017-18 data published by the Indian government’s National Sample Survey Office, more than 70% of rural women workers are engaged in agricultural work. In contrast to their high participation, women own 13.9% of landholdings, the agricultural census of 2015-16 found. Additionally, they often have limited access to resources such as fertiliser credit, and training, and spend more time on unpaid work than rural men and urban men and women.

This disparity is visible in other areas as well. For instance, the 2019 report on Men and Women in India, published by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation highlights that a rural woman earns only INR 179 in daily wages as a casual labourer  in contrast to INR 282 earned by her male counterpart.

The gendered limitations imposed on rural women threaten to destroy their productivity and incomes. 

The COVID-19 pandemic too has had a huge impact on women’s work. Data from the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) suggest that job losses in April 2020, as compared to April 2019, were larger for rural women than men.

The government of India have a few initiatives in place, set to empower rural women and enhance opportunities for them. Flagship programmes like the, National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS), the National Rural Livelihood Mission (NRLM) and its components such as the Mahila Kisan Sashaktikaran Pariyojana (MKSP), aim to increase women's participation in agriculture and infrastructure and strengthen community institutions for rural women.

Several non-government organizations (NGOs) and Community Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives have also come forward to extend resources and services to the hardest-to-reach rural women. For instance, Google’s Internet Saathi enables internet-savvy women on bicycles to travel to nearby villages with tables and smartphones to improve their access to the internet. So far, they have reached more than 300,000 women in 18,500 villages.

But before we have more reforms and more interventions and innovations, we need more data on rural women. Looking ahead, policy-makers need gender-sensitive data on the lives of rural women to take action and generate the political will to make change. 

Currently, we measure the poverty of households, not individuals, but the reality is that  women and men living under the same roof experience deprivation to different degrees. The persistence of these disparities helps to embellish an image of the rural woman as a victim instead of an agent of change. With the right resources and policy action, rural women could excel as entrepreneurs, investors, and partners with men.

It is estimated that if women farmers had access to the same resources as men, there could be 150 million fewer hungry people through the rise in output.

Governments and international organisations must adopt gender-sensitive metrics which measures individuals on multiple dimensions beyond money, including access to food, clothing, family planning, and freedom from violence. This would help collect more relevant evidence and data to design programmes and policies that are better oriented to serve rural women.

The issue of empowering rural women is not just a challenge, it is also an opportunity, one we must act on quickly.

Anubrata Basu - Senior Manager - Research & Communications, Sambodhi

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Beyond lighting: Rural electrification programs for enterprise development

Providing better electricity access to India’s vast population has long been a priority for the government and policy makers. Several government schemes such as Rajiv Gandhi Grameen Vidyutkaran Yojna (RGGVY), Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojna (DDUGJY) and Pradhan Mantri Har Ghar Sahaj Bijli (Saubhagya) Yojana have been implemented to support rural electricity infrastructure. According to a World Bank Report, India has led the developing world in addressing rural energy problems over the last decade .
By early 2019, 99 percent of India’s rural villages had been electrified, which showcases an outreach to more than 920 million people . However, the rapid pace of rural electrification has not yet led to 24 hours reliable electricity supply through the national grid .  Erratic and unreliable electricity supply in remote areas (on an average six hours per day) hampers the opportunity for people to adopt electricity in their day-to-day lives and engage in economic activities.

In recent years, private and grant supported rural electrification programs have provided access to electricity through renewable sources to complement the efforts of the government. This is done to ensure affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all by 2030 (as stated in Sustainable Development Goal #7). However, the emphasis of these programs has largely been on providing electricity needs of households in rural areas. This has met a crucial need among households for lighting and other appliances. 

Beyond basic household needs, however, electricity serves as an important driver for rural enterprise and business development, specifically the development of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs).

Access to reliable electricity is crucial for rural enterprises

The MSME sector contributes to regional development, employment generation, poverty reduction and overall economic growth. In India, this sector employs 110 million people and accounts for 28.77 percent of GDP.  The Government of India has implemented several programs such as the Scheme for Micro & Small Enterprise Cluster Development Programme (MSE-CDP), Financial support to MSMEs for certification, and A Scheme for Promotion of Innovation, Rural Industry & Entrepreneurship (ASPIRE). These programs are mainly aimed at providing financial and technical assistance and enhancing competitiveness of the MSME sector. Given the importance of MSME sector for the Indian economy, access to reliable electricity is as important as the provision of technical and financial support. 

Smart Power, a rural electrification initiative by the Rockefeller Foundation, aims to accelerate welfare in India by ensuring access to reliable electricity to rural customers. Renewable energy based mini-grids, set up under the Smart Power initiative provide electricity to households and micro-and-small enterprises in select villages of Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand and Bihar. These mini-grids provide good quality and reliable electricity for six hours in a day to 24 hours based on customers’ need and demand, overcoming the uncertainty associated with national grid electricity. 

The assured supply has been able to garner confidence among many enterprise owners to get involved in productive economic activities. Approximately 90 percent have shifted to the mini-grid as their primary source of electricity .  More than half of the customers (especially enterprises) use the mini-grid as their only source of electricity. Moreover, larger rural enterprises such as grain mills, computer & printer centres, public institutions and others have started running their heavy power load appliance on electricity through the mini-grid instead of diesel generators.

Enterprise customers have not just started using a single source as compared to earlier where they hedged their electricity requirements across multiple sources, but our data also indicates that they prefer the mini-grid to all other sources.

In addition, decentralized power generation through mini-grid ensures higher customer responsiveness than other sources of electricity. More than 70 percent of the customers have reported high level of satisfaction for the schedule and hours of electricity supply, grievance redressal mechanisms, and quality of service provided by the mini-grid operators. 

Role of rural electrification for enterprise development

Crucially, access to quality and reliable electricity through the mini grid has aided in expansion of business operations of many entrepreneurs in rural areas.

Ram Prasad (name changed), a resident of Gumla district of Jharkhand, India, owned a tiny printing shop. Frequent voltage fluctuations and disruptions in national grid supply often made him turn customers away for a later time. And ‘later’ could mean a few hours, a few days or in fact, a few weeks. Not only did his earnings take a blow, but customers were also affected, especially during emergency situations. 

The last few years has seen him scaling from a small shop owner to a rural enterprise stalwart. Because of mini-grid electricity, he has expanded his microenterprise into large multi-utility customer service centre, offering printing, lamination, and other services.

“I have become a rural entrepreneur from a small shop owner. Earlier, I provided printing services to the customers. Now, I have also bought lamination machine and registered myself  as a Government of India authorised Unique Identification (AADHAR) enrolment point, adding other necessary devices such as biometric machine and internet modem”

Emerging issues and challenges in rural electrification sector

While cases like Ram Prasad’s business offer glimpses of success, there is much work yet to be done. 

First, high cost of the electricity is a point of concern for many mini-grid customers and especially for the enterprise owners. High per-unit cost of mini-grid electricity increases their operating costs. Although, the cost of operating on mini-grid electricity is cheaper than that of a diesel generator, it is less economical than operating on a government grid electricity. 

Second, there are only a few rural electrification programs aiming for convergence between reliable electricity supply and provision of technical, financial and market support for the rural enterprises. The Smart Power initiative promotes setting-up of new enterprises through its Micro-enterprise Development (MED) activities. The sustained growth of new enterprises is maintained by providing technical assistance and skill development to the entrepreneurs, and developing backward and forward market linkages, in addition to the supply of good quality and reliable electricity. 

Simply put, there needs to be a fresh momentum at the policy level that regularises the high cost of electricity through renewable or decentralised systems. Further, future electrification policies and programs can focus on cross-sectoral, inter-departmental & public-private partnerships to support enterprise development, beyond provision of electricity. These partnerships will ensure holistic support to the rural entrepreneurs, capitalise on the efficiency of the private sector (such as the energy service companies (ESCOs)) and target the scale and outreach of the public sector. Thereby, ensuring financial viability of the rural electrification programs in the long run as well as enhancing larger developmental outcomes from better access to reliable electricity. 

It is crucial to note that access to electricity cannot alone solve the fundamental problem of poverty, but it can certainly provide an important impetus for triggering development in rural areas. Because reliability of electricity supply is a significant parameter for development, it is critical to ensure an assured supply at an affordable cost.

Ramanshu Ganguly - Assistant Vice President-Research, Sambodhi
Ridhi Jain, Economist

[1] Power for All: Electricity Access Challenge in India
[2] Electrification report, GoI and Bloomberg estimates (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-01-24/living-in-the-dark-240-million-indians-have-no-electricity
[3] Mini-grids: Electricity for all, Centre for Science and Environment Report

[4] Annual Report 2017-18, Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises. Data for 2015-16.

[5] Evidence gathered from Monitoring and Evaluation rounds conducted by Sambodhi for Smart Power program

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COVID-19 will make Data Science a critical necessity for the development sector

The outbreak of COVID-19 has put the global community of evaluators at an interesting, almost paradoxical, juncture. While the need for data and insights is most critical at this point to respond to the public health crisis, collecting this data is going to be now, and henceforth, more challenging than ever.

The article ‘Rewiring How We Measure Impact in the Post-Covid-19 World’ co-authored by Veronica Olazabal, Michael Bamberger, and Peter York puts several of our concerns as evaluators into perspective. In addition to the challenges that COVID-19 will potentially create for evaluators, the article stresses how Data Science will be instrumental in how the development and impact sector responds to the need for evidence.

With social distancing norms dictating human interactions until the pandemic is effectively controlled, in-person data collection is going to be hindered as the article correctly establishes. Yet, the need for real-time analytics from data is going to be even more critical not just in the public health domain but across parameters in order to rebuild the damage COVID-19 is inflicting on the socio-economic fabric of countries universally. Granular, localized, and verified data will be required by decision-makers – public, private, or philanthropic – in order to carry forward fast and effective impact at scale.

Data Science for development and social impact has been steadily gaining buy-in from governments, philanthropies, and relevant organizations across the board for a while now. Data Science technologies offer several advantages. Diverse datasets and sources can be integrated, and sampling biases can also be removed as big data covers large populations. Data Science also allows us to study patterns in behavior over long periods of time as well as predict future trends, an aspect that private sector organizations have been successfully leveraging.

The current COVID-19 situation will push the sector to treat Data Science not solely as an optimization tool, but as a critical necessity for social justice and impact to be delivered. This holds particularly true in Global South contexts where damage caused by the pandemic can be exponentially catastrophic.

India will also have to channelize Data Science technologies in order to contain the outbreak and to recover from the damage COVID-19 is inflicting. Fortunately, discourse is already underway in both public and private domains on how big data and AI can be utilized. However, translating this on the ground will be challenging for India owing to multiple factors. Not only is the architecture to harness data on the ground weak, the culture for data usage and appreciation is still nascent.

With the contextual and behavioral complexities and diversity of the Indian population, relying on big data sources such as social media, IoT, mobile phone and geospatial data alone will be thoroughly insufficient. A large proportion of this big data is harnessed from the supply-side, i.e., from the point of sale. It may not reflect the actual behavior of users who are on the demand-side. Unless big data can be validated and backed up with socio-economic and demographic variables, it will be of limited use to policymakers and implementors. Further, despite digital penetration in India being relatively high and digital payments and media usage increasing in rural areas, the modes of tapping big data is still relatively small for majority of the population. For remote, marginalized populations, stray digital activity and behavior is incapable of reflecting any valid or true patterns of human, demand-side behavior.

What India needs in current circumstances is a means to validate analytical insights derived from Data Science technologies, and to optimize the already existing data that exists at the grassroots that is yet to be tapped for its complete potential.

Since in-person data collection will be hindered, remote methods such as telephonic and video calling technologies must be explored. Mobile and high-speed internet penetration in India will enable this to a large extent in India. Layering this with big data insights can overcome validity concerns and offer holistic, 360-degree insights on human behavior patterns which could also be used for forecasting activities.

We will also have to inspect our public systems for the data reserves that already exist. Several grassroots and local entities house rich primary, demand-side data that can be transformative. For example, frontline community health workers are well-trained in collecting medical and health data, several of who use technology-enabled devices to track records. Tapping into this to maximize the insights derived can prove immensely valuable.

Navigating contextual constraints with technology and by leveraging existing infrastructures is the answer to how evaluators in India will respond to the need for data in the post-COVID-19 era. Data Science will become indispensable to how the development sector advances, and innovation will help overcome some of the challenges it poses in the Indian context.

Swapnil Shekhar - Director and Co-founder, Sambodhi

Kaamila Patherya - Program Manager, Sambodhi

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