State engagement with religious leaders for effective COVID19 crisis response

The goal of this study is to test whether outreach with religious leaders can enhance state effectiveness at dealing with the COVID-19 public health crisis. Many Islamic countries including Pakistan have cancelled or severely restricted congregational prayer to combat the spread of the disease. However, many mosques in Pakistan continue to hold congregational prayer. In a few cases, this has led to clashes between the state and mosques (e.g. in which police assigned to enforce the rules on Friday prayer have had violent confrontations with large gatherings of congregants). With Ramadan beginning on April 23 bringing higher typical attendance as well as the traditional practice of extended evening congregational prayers with a complete recitation of the Quran over the month (Tarawih), compliance with social distancing protocols will be an even greater challenge. There is also a need for accurate information spread on the disease and its mitigation, given widespread myths about the disease. Imams can serve as an initial point of contact trusted by the community to help in rapid dissemination of accurate information. We have a database of contact information for several thousand imams. We will conduct information treatment calls with a randomized sub-sample of imams. As of the date of this pre-registration, we have conducted pilot information treatment calls with approximately 200 imams to date. Resources permitting, we intend to scale this up with a larger sample of imams in the coming weeks.