The welfare benefits assessment led by the Welfare Benefits Board, is supported by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), and the World Bank (WB). The Welfare Benefit Board has introduced a system to identify those in financial need amidst the current economic and political crisis. Accordingly, a QR code system has been developed for those that should register as beneficiaries of the welfare subsidy. All those registered will be assessed based on a set of 22 indicators – using a Computer-Assisted Personal Interviews (CAPI) mode (digitized survey). This survey has been translated into local languages and digitized on Kobotoolbox platform using a customised application called Aswesuma.
The Centre for Poverty Analysis (CEPA) provided technical support to improve the survey tool, develop the training material and module and deliver the training required to administer the CAPI survey.
30 master trainers, who will act in the capacity of Trainer of Trainers (TOT) were trained on the questionnaire/survey by the Department of Census and Statistics (DCS) and on CAPI by the Welfare Benefits Board and CEPA.
Manique Gunaratne was one of the Master Trainers to support an inclusive approach to include persons with disabilities into the scheme. The master trainer pool then trained 330 Statistical Officers (SOs) and 660 Development Officers (DOs), who then trained 14,000 enumerators at each GN division. The role of the master trainers was to ensure that the survey purpose, indicator definitions and navigation and use of the CAPI /Aswesuma platform are transferred to the DCS officers – in both Sinhala and Tamil. These DCS officers acted in the capacity of trouble-shooters and first line of defence for the 14,000 enumerators.
The training sessions were held at the BMICH, at the Department of Census & Statistics and at the CEPA office from October to December 2022.
MANIQUE GUNARATNE
Committee Member – SPRINT Committee of Family Planning Association
