Thirdly, the MPI survey gave CR an “Impact Measurement” tool. It is notoriously difficult to measure impact in our sector, but major donors are increasingly demanding evidence of a social return on their investment. Periodic MPI surveys in the slum communities will provide hard evidence of both deprivation levels and our impact.  CR is now able to incorporate impact targets into many of its donor proposals using the MPI data, e.g. “CR will reduce the deprivations in the health indicators by 50% in 5 years in these 6 slums”.

Finally, the survey acts as a powerful communication tool. Few organisations, particularly ones as small as CR, gather such detailed information about the communities where they work and we have been sharing the data with stakeholders, such as government, other NGOs, businesses and academic institutions –  with the aim of collaborating with like-minded partners – to achieve common objectives.

An example of this, which I am delighted to announce, is that we are collaborating with the University of Leeds for this second MPI survey. Dr. Suman Seth, an expert in this field, is working with the CRRC to shape how we run the survey. 

The main objectives this time round remain the same. However, there is some extra analytical work – comparing the results of this survey and the one in 2019 and we want to compare our findings with the Indian national MPI. This will allow us to benchmark the conditions in Kolkata’s slum communities against national and regional data.  

The CRRC has also been working closely with CR’s medical team to collect more specific health-related information this time – data that will shape our medical interventions going forward.

Implementing a survey of this magnitude is a massive task. It requires great team coordination cross-cutting many departments and involving a lot of people, including our foreign volunteers, Indian interns and CR staff.

It is a big challenge but we are looking forward to it, and to sharing the results with you in around 6 months’ time!