Social interactions and the integration of internally displaced people in Mozambique

Last registered on May 03, 2023

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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title

Social interactions and the integration of internally displaced people in Mozambique

RCT ID

AEARCTR-0011212

Initial registration date

April 24, 2023

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published

May 03, 2023, 4:03 PM EDT

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Locations

Country

Mozambique

Region

Pemba, Cabo Delgado

Primary Investigator

Name

Henrique Barros

Affiliation

Brown University

Contact Primary Investigator

Other Primary Investigator(s)

Additional Trial Information

Status

In development

Start date

2023-04-25

End date

2024-01-31

Keywords

Crime, Violence, & Conflict, Other, Post-conflict

Additional Keywords

field experiment, radicalization, intergroup contact

JEL code(s)

Secondary IDs

Prior work

This trial is based on or builds upon one or more prior RCTs.

Abstract

The region of Cabo Delgado, Mozambique, is currently facing a jihadist insurgency, launched by Al-Shabaab, which has already led to 150,000 internally displaced people (IDPs) to relocate to Pemba, the provincial capital. I will conduct a field experiment in Pemba in which IDPs and local Pemba residents will be joined in four community meetings. Each community meetings will focus on a specific topic: life in Pemba's neighbourhoods; prejudice; religious tolerance; future and aspirations. Four hypotheses will be tested: (1) direct contact between groups will improve tolerance, trust, and social cohesion, and will generate social networks between locals and IDPs; (2) exposure to IDPs will decrease the support of both locals and IDPs for insurgents; (3) the marginal returns of intergroup contact are decreasing in the level of contact; (4) intergroup contact generates spillovers based on i) geographic proximity and ii) network proximity to treated individuals. This trial will improve on a pilot intervention also conducted by me (AEARCTR-0009827).

External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation

Barros, Henrique. 2023. "Social interactions and the integration of internally displaced people in Mozambique." AEA RCT Registry. May 03. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.11212-1.0

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Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)

This intervention will consist promoting in gathering internally displaced people (IDPs) and local hosts in four community meetings, spaced by two months. In each community meeting, a specific pre-defined topic will be addressed. Community meetings will be moderated by a local religious leader. Individuals in the control group will not participate in any community meeting.

The empirical assessment will include a baseline assessment before the first meeting. Every two months, immediately before each subsequent meeting, a follow-up assessment will be conducted. Two months after the last community meeting an endline assessment will be conducted. Each assessment will include surveys, list-experiments and an implicit association test. In addition, the endline assessment will also include lab-in-the-field games.

Intervention Start Date

2023-04-25

Intervention End Date

2024-01-31

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)

a) Religious tolerance (measured using an index composed of survey questions; implicit association test score; graphical list experiment; text analysis + open ended questions)
b) Tolerance towards IDPs (measured using an index composed of survey questions; list experiment; text analysis + open ended questions)
c) Well being of IDPs
d) Trust in IDPs / locals

The endline assessment will also include lab-in-the-field games measuring preference for the other group (dictator game), cooperation (public goods game) and anti-social behavior (joy of destruction game)

Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Religious tolerance index: constructed by averaging survey questions measuring preference for freedom of religion, imposition of the Sharia.

Religious tolerance - Text analysis + open ended questions: the answers to open ended questions asking about individuals’ thoughts about respondents will be the target of an emotions and sentiment analysis.

Index of Tolerance Towards IDPs: constructed by averaging survey questions measuring locals’ preference for IDPs staying in local neighborhoods or Pemba. Beliefs and attitudes towards IDPs.

Institutional Trust Index: Trust in different individuals will be measured directly in the survey (i.e. the level of trust that a participant has in family members, neighbours, IDPs, locals, political leaders, etc.). I will also construct a trust index by aggregating participants' trust level in different individuals: a) general trust index (averaging all questions); b) government, c) local people, etc.

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)

a) Aspirations (measured using survey questions)

b) Social networks (measured using survey questions)

Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Aspirations index: composed of survey questions capturing individuals assessment on future income, occupation, and children level of schooling.

Social networks: connection index aggregating individuals personal networks, using survey data.

Experimental Design

The study sample will be composed of both internally displaced people (IDPs) and locals. Individuals in each of these groups will be randomly selected to participate in the study.

This study will take place in 9 (out of 13) neighborhoods in Pemba. In each neighborhood, a random sample of IDPs and locals will be selected. IDPs and locals randomly selected to be in the study sample will be randomly allocated to cohorts of 14 people (8 IDPs and 6 locals). Cohorts can either belong to “treatment” or “control” groups. Individuals in the treatment group will engage in four community meetings, spaced from each other for about two months. Individuals in the control group will not participate in any community meeting.

With the purpose of measuring spillover effects, study participants will be allowed to invite two persons close to them to participate in a short survey at baseline and endline. In addition, coordinates of the homes of all study participants will also be collected.

Experimental Design Details

The selection of IDPs and locals into the study will follow different procedures.

IDPs will be randomly selected based on the Displacement Tracking Matrix, built by the International Organization for Migrations (IOM). This dataset includes the names of all IDPs heads of households, telephone numbers and detailed location within the neighborhoods. The access of the research team to this dataset follows a data sharing agreement with IOM.

The DTM is stored as an Excel file. Therefore, the research team randomly sorts the names to be invited to participate in the study. IDPs that cannot be found are replaced by the names following the list constructed by the research team.

Regarding locals, there is no roster such as DTM. Instead, we will use the method of random walks. The sampling interval will be based on the most recent official information, which comes from the 2017 Census of Mozambique.

Randomization Method

There will exist 2 different randomisation strategies: a) IDPs; b) Locals.
a) IDPs being invited will be randomly selected based on the roster of displaced people, kept by IOM. In each neighbourhood 68 individuals will be randomly chosen out of all IDPs in the roster. Specifically, this will be done by using a computer to randomly pick 68 individuals among everyone in the roster.

b) Locals's invitation in each neighbourhood will follow the method of a random walk. Enumerators will have the help of local guides in order to find the center of the neighbourhoods. From there, they will move in different directions, randomly picking up local households according to the designated sampling interval (neighbourhood-specific).

Individuals selected to be in the study sample will then be randomly assigned to treatment or control cohorts. Treatment assignment will be done by lottery, at the moment when individuals are being invited to be study participants. Invitees draw a card from a bag. Each card has a different number, which indicates to which cohort the invitee will be allocated throughout the entire study.

Randomization Unit

Individual level

Was the treatment clustered?

Yes

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters

9 neighbourhoods. Each neighbourhood is planned to have 8 cohorts (clusters), each one including 8 IDPs and 6 locals (totalling 14 invidivuals per cluster)

Sample size: planned number of observations

The target study sample if 1008 individuals: 576 IDPs and 432 locals. The different proportion of IDPs and locals is explained by a higher predicted attrition rate among IDPs throughout the intervention (based on evidence from a previous assessment).

Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms

Each neighbourhood will have control and treatment clusters. I estimate 4 treatment clusters and 4 control clusters (each cluster is planned to be composed of 14 individuals, ideally 8 IDPs and 6 locals).

Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)

Supporting Documents and Materials

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