Section: Home > News and Events > PENEWS 2008-1 (March): The answer may be 23, or perhaps 44

PENEWS 2008-2 (July): PEN to the world

CONTENT:

• Updates: Monica Fisher new CIFOR and PEN scientist

• The first PEN results at an international conference (IASC)

• Data pains, and some aspirin

• Good reading: Q2

• Conservation across the river (in Nigeria)

• PENroach dispatch 2: BLOGS

1. Updates

• Monica Fisher will join CIFOR’s Livelihoods programme in August-September, based at the HQ in Bogor, Indonesia. She will be involved in PEN organization and global analyses, and her arrival substantially strengthens the Bogor-based PEN team (Terry Sunderland, Ronnie Babigumira and Ramadhani (Dani) Achdiawan). Monica comes from an Assistant Professorship in agricultural economics at Oregon State University in the US, and has extensive experience in data analysis and field work from particularly Malawi.

• PEN partner Amy Duchelle recently accepted a post-doc with the University of Florida's Amazon Conservation Leadership Initiative, funded by the Moore Foundation, to return to the Western Amazon where she conducted PhD fieldwork. She will integrate local graduate students from the Ecology and Regional Development Master's programs at the Brazilian Federal University in Acre into a regional REDD research effort in collaboration with the Woods Hold Research Center / Instituto de Pesquisa Ambiental da Amazônia.

• Two papers based on PEN data have been published in peer reviewed journals:

  • Rahman, S.A., Imam, M.H., Wachira, S.W., Farhana, K.M, Torres, B., Kabir.D.M.H. (2008) Land Use Patterns and the Scale of Adoption of Agroforestry in the Rural Landscapes of Padma Floodplain in Bangladesh. Forests, Trees and Livelihoods, 18: 193–207

  • Tieguhong, J.C.; Betti, J.L. 2008. Forest and protected area management in Cameroon. ITTO Tropical Forest Update 18 (1): 6-9. URL: http://www.itto.or.jp/live/Live_Server/4075/tfu.2008.01(06-09).e.pdf.
     

• Two more draft PEN data sets have been submitted bringing the total to 11. The beta version of data aggregation programs is currently being tested.

2. PEN to the world (or at least IASC 2008)

Six PEN partners (Amy Duchelle, Pam Jagger, Charles Jumbe, Shah Raees Khan, Khaled Misbahuzzaman, and José Pablo Prado Córdova), PEN Coordinator Arild Angelsen, and PEN resource person William Sunderlin participated in the 12th Biennial Conference of the International Association for the Study of the Commons (IASC), held July 14-19, University of Gloucestershire, Cheltenham, UK. This event marked the first presentation of PEN research at a major international conference.

The role of the IASC is to contribute new knowledge to understanding and improving institutions for the management of resources that are (or could be) held or used collectively. In recent years forests have figured prominently in the discourse of the association. The theme of the 12th Biennial Conference was connecting local experience with global challenges. PEN promises to do just that by bringing together detailed data from over 30 studies focused on local conditions and synthesizing trends and policy challenges for poverty alleviation and forest management. Papers were presented in two consecutive panels organized around the themes of: tenure and property rights, and forests and livelihoods.

Papers by Jagger (Uganda), Jumbe (Zambia) and Misbahuzzaman (Bangladesh) highlighted the relative importance of forests to the income portfolios of rural households. Several policies were addressed by these studies including: the failure of Uganda’s decentralization reform to improve forest incomes for the rural poor; linkages between macroeconomic trends and forest income in Zambia; and the influence of village common forests on rural livelihoods in Bangladesh.

Understanding the nuanced nature of access rights to resources and conveying the complexity of these institutions to policy makers was also a central theme of the conference. In the low income tropics, the majority of forests are held privately or by the state. Data from PEN illustrate the relative importance of access to forest products held under various tenure regimes. The influence of contested or insecure property rights on rural livelihoods was highlighted in papers Khan (Pakistan), and Prado Córdova (Guatemala). Duchelle in a comparative study of Brazil nut harvesting in Brazil and Bolivia linked insecure property rights to livelihood strategies, and demonstrated the potential for participatory mapping to resolve conflicts over access rights.

In addition to the formal proceedings of the conference PEN partners met informally to discuss the challenges of data entry and cleaning, job prospects, the virtues of British beer, and other PEN business. PEN is grateful to Pam Jagger for organizing the panels, and PEN partners and resource persons are encouraged to coordinate panels at other professional meetings.

3. The pains of data checking and cleaning

A key aim of PEN is to get HIGH-QUALITY data, but that’s a challenging task. The tension is summarized by econometrics guru Zvi Griliches who, discussing the uneasy alliance between econometricians and data, notes that the profession has an ambivalent attitude towards economic data. At one level, the "data" are the world that we/they want to explain, the basic facts that economists purport to elucidate. At the other level, they are the source of all our troubles. Their imperfection makes the job difficult and often impossible (Griliches 1985).

Anyone who has dealt with data will tell you that data management is a much bigger task than data analysis (Dr Fisher's Casebook). Now that submitted datasets are being cleaned, PEN partners can attest to the pain, headache, frustration, and downright anger that Grilliches understates as "trouble".

Data entry and cleaning takes time - and more than you think! What many PEN partners are now experiencing is what field researchers have experienced before. Collecting data is one thing; entering, checking, cleaning and transforming it into a 'ready-to-use' dataset is quite another thing. Field manuals often underestimate the time and dedication needed.

So, how to avoid the data pain? Unfortunately, there are no shortcuts: getting high-quality data takes time. Good planning and organization can act like aspirin and make the work less painful:

• one person, in most cases the PEN partner, should take the overall responsibility for the quality of the data (that cannot be outsourced).

• the actual data entry (and checking) should be done by someone who knows the questionnaire and data collection, for example, the PEN partner, field supervisor and/or one or two of the enumerators. The person in charge should regularly check the quality of data entry, and provide training and advice. Non-performing data enters should be replaced (more than one PEN partner has experienced that all data entered by some individuals better be re-entered).

• plan for the data entry and cleaning, and then multiply the estimated time by 2. It will take several months, and is not an afternoon/evening job over a few weeks.

• and, getting high-quality data requires attention to details at all stages! Recall good old Einstein: “Anyone who doesn't take truth seriously in small matters cannot be trusted in large ones either.”

Finally, we have put together some material to help explain PEN’s data cleaning strategy. Click on these links: The process of data cleaning, Reading the cleaning report, Reducing the size of bug reports.

References:

"Dr Fisher’s Casebook”. (2007) The Trouble with Data. Significance, 4.
Griliches, Zvi. (1985) "Data and Econometricians-the Uneasy Alliance." American Economic Review, 75 (2).

4. Good reading: Q²

Probably more energy has been expended on debating the differences between and relative advantages of qualitative and quantitative methods than almost any other methodological topic in social research. The qualitative/quantitative debate is one of those hot-button issues that almost invariably triggers an intense encounter in the hotel bar at any social research convention (Trochim, 2000).

Some of the discussion is about the applicability to a given problem but often, it is about “superiority” of one method over the other. However, as Trochim (2006) observes, this kind of polarized debate has become counter-productive. And, it obscures the fact that qualitative and quantitative data are intimately related to each other. All quantitative data is based upon qualitative judgments; and all qualitative data can be described and manipulated numerically.

To say that one or the other approach is better is simply trivializing a far complex. Both quantitative and qualitative research rest on rich and varied traditions that come from multiple disciplines and both have been employed to address almost any research topic you can think of. In fact, in almost every applied social research project, there is value in consciously combining qualitative and quantitative methods (Trochim, 2000; 2006).

Closer to home (poverty analysis), Kanbur and Schaffer (2007) observe that recent years have seen increasing attention focused on using mixed qualitative and quantitative methods (Q2) methods in the analysis of poverty. This recent rediscovery of mixed methods in poverty analysis they argue, is a welcome development with large potential payoffs in terms of understanding and explaining poverty.

World Development 35 (2), February 2007, is a special issue on Experiences of Combining Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches in Poverty Analysis with applications of this approach in a number of places. You can read the introduction here. If you cannot get a copy locally, send an email to Titin Suhartini at CIFOR: t.suhartini@cgiar.org

References:

Kanbur, R., and Shaffer, P. (2007) Epistemology, Normative Theory and Poverty Analysis: Implications for Q-Squared in Practice. World Development, 35 (2): 183-196 (http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0305750X06001896).

Trochim, William M. The Research Methods Knowledge Base, 2nd Edition. Internet WWW page, at URL: <http://www.socialresearchmethods.net/kb/datatype.php> (version current as of October 20, 2006)

Trochim, W. (2000). The Research Methods Knowledge Base, 2nd Edition. Atomic Dog Publishing, Cincinnati, OH.

PEN PROJECT: Sylvanus Abua: Linking Community Based Forest Management and Poverty Reduction: The case of the Mbe Mountains Wildlife Sanctuary, Nigeria

Cross River State in Nigeria holds about 50% of Nigeria’s last remaining tropical rainforest. For this reason, a number of donor-driven conservation projects have been implemented in the State. Regrettably, most of these initiatives do not have the local support they need to continue without external donor funding. Why?

This project tries to answer this question by studying context-specific institutional, social and cultural factors that are crucial to long-term conservation of natural resources. It will draw on extensive household surveys to gain insight in to local perceptions of what they stand to gain or lose due to any conservation effort. The main objective is to study how conservation of the Mbe Mountains can address the concerns of local people to ensure local ownership and sustainability of the initiative.

Data will come from households within the Mbe Mountains – recognized as one of the last remaining mountain rainforests in West Africa – located between the Afi Mountains and the Okwangwo sector of the Cross River National Park, Cross River State (Nigeria). The habitat harbours many important primates, including the Cross River Gorilla (Gorilla gorilla dielhi) and has in the recent past gained prominence as a centre for primate and wildlife conservation.

The study is being carried out in two phases, with the first phase designed specifically to contribute data to PEN’s data bank. Working through the Wildlife Conservation Society, the first phase of the study (November 2007 – October 2008) adapted PEN prototype questionnaire for the collection of data from 280 households sampled from 4 of the nine constituent communities. The phase 1 study team comprises the principal researcher (Sylvanus Abua), a research assistant (Felix Akombi) and 8 enumerators recruited from the 4 study villages. In line with the PEN’s study approach, phase 1 research activities involve 2 annual village surveys, 2 annual household surveys and 4 quarterly household surveys. To date, over 50% of the first phase has been completed and plans are underway to complete the remaining surveys.

The second phase of the study (November 2008 – February 2009) aims to generate additional data on perception of local communities of the potential role the community conservancy can play in poverty reduction at the household level. Using participatory research methods, the second phase of the study will also identify and identify social factors that are crucial to the successful management of the Mbe Mountains.

PENroach dispatch 2: BLOGS
Blog: A frequent, chronological publication of personal thoughts and Web links

Chances are that you visit a blog(s) regularly and, if you do not have one, may be contemplating getting in on the action. Are they useful or just another one of those time-wasting internet offerings? BOTH. Find a good one(s) and the posts can be very informative and entertaining (e.g., answers to the “big” questions here and some advice here).

Here are PENroachs (specie in the blogivore order) top 3 blogs. Bias alert, heavily towards the dismal science’s attempt to solve the world’s problems.
1. http://rodrik.typepad.com/  (Dani Rodrik)
2. http://chrisblattman.blogspot.com/  (Chris Blattman)
3. http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/  (Tyler Cowen and Alex Tabarrok)

Finally, not exactly a blog but a collection of William Easterly's (very interesting) pieces. Not one to shy away from fights he always says what he is on his mind. Reviewing “The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time”: he wrote …the rock star as economist meets the economist as rock star... Reviewing “The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries are Failing and What Can Be Done About It”, he observed that …Economists should not be allowed to play games with statistics, much less with guns… Some he has criticized have hit back though ….William Easterly, who reviewed my book The End of Poverty (Book World, March 13), is notorious as the cheerleader for "can't-do" economics…. You can read the exchange and more on Easterly’s page

Want to start or improve your blog?
Traffic traffic traffic. If no one is driving along your blogway, you are not doing it right. What makes a good blog? Content is King (and more tips here). Finally, here is some advice from the master, Jorn Barger the original blogger http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/news/2007/12/blog_advice.

As always, if you have ideas for the PENroach, please send us (r.babigumira@cgiar.org) an email. We would particularly like to know which your favourite research-useful blogs are.

Arild Angelsen, PEN coordinator
Ronnie Babigumira, PEN Research Fellow