Why?

1. Why? • It is a civil right to be counted • What gets measured gets done • You don’t count if you are not counted • The poor are never registered (counted)

3. Northern district • No community based mortality figures • No community based socio-economic data • No real-time data on changes in sense of security, reasons for moving closer or returning home

4. DSS • Extended community ”Civil register” based on repeated household interviews • Tool to keep track of and describe a well defined population (demography) • Measures changes over time: ”Transformation in human security” • Census, family structure • Repeated household visits • Births, deaths and migration • Socio-economic status (land, assets, education, employment, religion, IDP status etc) • Simple health indicators, incl. Circumstances of birth, death • Circumstances and patterns of moving, migration (why, when, how, with whom) • Via an ID number basic information can be linked to any other data collected (moving, birth, death, socio-economic, agriculture, wealth, educ.)

5. Basics of DSS • Scientific questions that require baseline and/or follow-up information • Researchers define what is monitored based on research question • Any particular research creates specific questionnaires and related databases that are then linked to the basic demographic data • Always keep the key functions running: • births, deaths, migration, simple background information • 35 sites organised in a network: INDEPTH (indepth-network.org) • Sites have uniform methodology = share data, cross site comparisons possible

6. Basic methods and outcome • Identify specific population groups or individuals for interview • Birth cohorts • Intervention studies • Long term follow-up • ”what happened to xx and yy that came out of the bush in 2008” • ”What happened to the children of xx and yy” • What is the current socio-economic status of people from xx camp that experienced heavy rain in 2006 • What is the prevalence of gender based violence among wives of men who ….. • Anemia, hospitalisation or malnutrition among abducted children • Training site for community work and contact

7. Population and community • Trust, confidence, help, advocate community problems to authorities • More reliable information • Access to more ”delicate” information • Violence, sexual behaviour, unofficial incomes, favouritism, invisible powerstructures, bribery, abuse • Makes way for projects with delicate questions

8. Public health • Extraction of teeth, teehing diarrhoea • Lemon and cholera • Food aid in a crisis • Evaluate existing health interventions (ante-natal care, immunizations, bednets, malaria treatment) • Emerging or threatening crop failures (Tanzania), famines, diseases among domestic animals, human epidemics or other public health threats • System always in place even in unexpected events

9. Public health • Picks up overlooked health problems, invisible vulnerable groups • Monitor fertility • STIs, HIV • Risk factors • Behaviour change over time • Prospective study: Food insecurity/prices and sexual ”risk behaviour” of mothers • Document if and why changes in health drives development/higher sense of security (or opposite….)

10. Effects of a chronic crisis during and after outbreak of peace • Immediate • Short term • Long term • Dynamics over time • Vacuum…. • What happens to abducted children when they grow older: • How do they behave, see themselves,form society, worklife and family • Identification of (still) abducted persons or persons who are still missing/disappeared – whereabouts, circumstances of eventual return • Prepared for reversal of situation

11. Management • Feed planners with up to date information • Morbidity • Mortality (causes of death by camp, village etc) • Migration/return situation • Patterns of moving (changes in patterns…) • Land issues • Special information needs from specific institutions • Quaterly reports • Yearly seminars/reports

12. Antropology • Rapid assesments: Rapid formation of focus groups (women > 35 with > 5 children) • Identify individuals who came back from the war at a specific time • Real-time information: Who moved at a specific time or for a specific reason with or without family – other circumstances • Test/support qualitative findings or studies • Official and unofficial ways of survival can be explored (residence, legal illegal trade, favouritism, food aid) • Microepidemiology: mapping social capacity

13. Human security • What is human security on a population base, community base and individual • Monitors changes in sense of human security over time • Long term effect • Dose-response effects (e.g. time exposed to abduction, time in camp) • New/changing elements in human security are captured

14. Psychiatry • Dynamics of post stress conditions • Dynamics of depression, suicide • Special risk groups • Alcohol and drug abuse and violence/family structure/migration • Suburbanisation and men

15. Clinical medicine • Link to hospital records • Evaluate outcome from visits to health centers and hospitals • Monitor real-time use of health care and actual morbidity (or fatality) • Public health interventions in real life

16. Equity • Identification of ultra-poor, extremely vulnerable • DSS enables to break down the elements of a viscious circle: poor health -> poor working (farming) capacity -> poor income -> poor choices • Security and socio-economic capacity

17. Various • Repeated information on cattle, poultry • Crop yield, stocks • Monitor food intake, type of food, nutritional value • Food expenditure by season, residence etc. • Changing socio-economic status, changing values • Ethnic differences in behaviour, security • Monitors household income over time • Monitors assaults, crime • Monitor changes in peoples expectations • Chronic diseases, disability and security • Resilience: why do some manage to survive and get the best out of a situation while others are not able to cope