IDMS Pilot Testing Results for Las Piñas and Bislig City
Brief Project Background
The National Conference on Disability-Inclusive Disaster Risk Reduction Conference (NatCon on DiDRR) held last 12-13 October 2017 in Cebu highlighted that data is one of the most important considerations in assuring the safety and protection of Persons with Disabilities during disaster situations. The Participants in the Regional Consultations leading to the NatCon on DiDRR emphasized that “Without accurate data, the sector cannot be recognized, counted, and be accounted for.”
Relevant information on persons with disabilities which include age, gender, disability, etc., should be available in order for local governments and agencies to accurately provide disability-specific services, inclusive risk assessments, planning, and policymaking. At present, no such disaggregated and publicly available data is present in the Philippines. Moreover, a data-gathering tool to accurately record disability information, which includes specific disabilities and needs, has not yet been mainstreamed in local government processes.
Subsequently, the delegates of the NatCon in the Cebu Declaration on DiDRRM committed to “Improving data management on Gender, Age, and Disability with focus on collection, disaggregation, and standardization for risk information and assessment”.
Following through the NatCon resolutions and continuing its commitment to DiDRRM, the Center for Disaster Preparedness (CDP) submitted a proposal to VOICE, financed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands and managed in consortium by Hivos and Novib Oxfam, entitled “Inclusive Data Management System for Persons with Disabilities”. The project involves consultations with national and local stakeholders, most especially DPOs and PDAOs, to develop and field test tools to collect disability and DRRM information, and capacitate stakeholders in the data management system by January 31, 2020.
Field testing were implemented in Bislig City, Surigao del Sur through Loving Presence and Lawaan; Eastern Samar through Special & Differently Abled Persons of Lawaan; and added much later, Las Piñas City, Metro Manila through the Las Piñas Federation of Persons with Disability. The additional area was a response to advice and recommendations received by the project team after a series of meetings and consultations with key DPOs, PDAOs and CSOs engaged in DiDRRM and/or have implemented and used inclusive data management tools. They noted the importance of administering the tool’s field and pilot testing in two distinct areas from both rural and urban setting rather than proceeding with two separate yet essentially homogenous population sample.
The questionnaire or tool for data capture was then refined after the initial run of data profiling using the KoboTool app. Here’s the result of the pilot testing that was conducted in Brgy. Ilaya in Las Piñas City and Brgy. San Jose in Bislig City:
Project Aims, Outputs and Outcomes
The project intends to develop a data gathering tool that would gather relevant information on persons with disabilities; aiding in the identification of persons with disabilities through the Washington Group of Questions, along with their needs, vulnerabilities, and capacities in pre-, during, and post-disaster situations.
The aim of the Project is to promote the inclusion of persons with disabilities in planning, budgeting, and other development processes of local government and agencies particularly in DRRM. Its intended outcome is the increased capacity of local governments to capture specific information on persons with disabilities in their localities.
The project will collect and record information on disability and disaster risk reduction & management (DRRM) through the use of Kobo Collect, an open source Android application used in primary data collection for challenging environments. Ultimately, the intended output of the project is the establishment of a comprehensive data management system for persons with disabilities at the municipal or city level.
Data Gathering Methodology
The version 4.1 of the IDMS Tool was first officially used last November 19 – December 13, 2019 in Barangay Ilaya, Las Piñas City, and November 26 - December 6, 2019 in Barangay San Jose, Bislig City in Surigao del Sur.
The enumerators used Kobo Collect through their mobile phones in gathering the information from a total of 1,755 households across the two barangays – 781 in Las Pinas City and 974 in Bislig City.
A total of 295 persons with disabilities were recorded in the IDMS. 264 of them or 89% agreed to answering or were capable of taking part in the data collection. The project team and the enumerators endeavored to cover all of the households in the barangay.
The questionnaire has 54 main questions. The mobile data collection allowed for daily submission of entries directly to a private and secured cloud-based database through Kobo Toolbox. Average data submission was 8 households per day.
A total of 14 persons with disability participated in the conduct of this process as enumerators in Las Piñas City, and 15 persons with disability in Bislig City.