Helping Communities Manage risks from the ground up.

Having secured excellent cooperation with leading MFIs and NGOs for the implementation of community-based microinsurance schemes in Nepal, the MIA and Save the Children carried out a baseline survey in two Nepalese districts.

Starting March 2009, a household survey and a qualitative survey (through Focus Group Discussions and Key Informant Interviews) were carried out in the districts of Dhading and Banke, Nepal, covering a total of 2008 households and 10912 people.

The qualitative survey alone consisted of 40 Focus Group Discussions (involving both groups of men and women) and 51 Key Informant Interviews (carried out with traditional healers, providers in public health facilities, grassroots governmental health workers and auxiliaries, private hospital providers, local pharmacies, pathology laboratory providers and district hospital representatives) across the two districts. The fieldwork was carried out in cooperation with (and among the members of) our local partners DEPROSC and NIRDHAN respectively, and had to face the challenges of difficult access to hilly areas and ethnic unrest causing frequent 'Bandhs' (general strikes).

The survey data is now being analysed, and first results will be available soon. In this instance we decided to carry out both quantitative and qualitative analysis in parallel. A detailed Baseline Report documenting the findings will be available to the partners by the end of 2009, and the MIA, together with Save the Children and the local partners will convene a National Policy Conference in Kathmandu by the end of October 2009 to launch the preliminary findings.