Purpose
International Men and Gender Equality Survey (IMAGES) is a household study that seeks to understand men’s attitudes and behaviours around issues of gender equality around the world. The study compares results for men with those for women in order to design interventions that can engage men in gender equality and the prevention of gender-based violence. The survey involves unique questionnaires for each gender and covers highly sensitive topics related to gender equality, such as childhood experiences of violence, gender relations, partner relations and relationship satisfaction, gender-based violence, and sexual behaviour. The IMAGES project has been implemented in more than 27 countries and has inspired other studies, such as the Partners for Prevention United Nations Multi-Country Study on Men and Violence. IMAGES has received recognition, support and funding from several international organisations, such as the World Bank, the United Kingdom’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, UN Women, the United Nations Population Fund, the United Nations Development Programme, and the International Development Research Centre.
Action
EDI Global was contracted by Equimundo (formerly Promundo-US) to conduct the IMAGES study from 2016 to 2017 in Tanzania and Uganda, during which time we interviewed a total of 4,032 women and men across the two countries. EDI Global led the sampling strategy, the preparation of the survey tools, including the adaption of the questionnaire to the local context, the programming of the computer-assisted personal interviewing (CAPI) software, the training of field teams, as well as the implementation and oversight of all fieldwork and data quality procedures. For this sensitive survey, EDI Global developed specific tools and procedures for administering sensitive questions in surveys, in order to maximise the quality of the data collected in the field. This included the following:
(i) within each sub-cluster, sampling respondents from the same gender (i.e., only interviewing female respondents in one sub-village and male respondents in another);
(ii) ensuring interviewers and respondents were the same sex; and
(iii) carefully designing the wording of the questions and their position in the survey.
The project oversampled adolescents aged 15–19 years to reach a sample of 672 per country (30% of the total sample), which was successfully achieved by EDI Global through the design of specific in-field sampling procedures associated with a random walk approach.
Impact
EDI Global conducted a number of activities as part of the IMAGES project in Tanzania and Uganda, including:
interviews across the two countries
interviews with adults aged 20–49
interviews with adolescents aged 15–19
villages visited across five regions of Tanzania: Dar es Salaam, Iringa, Dodoma, Tabora and Kagera
parishes visited across 22 districts in the Central Region of Uganda
