How has COVID impacted the way researchers do fieldwork?

This episode features IFPRI Research Analyst Shweta Gupta who, in a conversation with Sivan Yosef, tells the story of how the pandemic has upended the way IFPRI researchers are doing household surveys. In Gujarat, India, Shweta and her colleagues have launched a multi-round survey of self-employed women living in rural and urban areas, interviewing them over the phone instead of in-person. The switch has had huge implications, from how enumerators are being trained to how many respondents are willing to participate. But the biggest question of all: is anyone else listening in on these women’s phone conversations and how might that impact their survey answers?