Purpose
The Small Firm Diaries is an ambitious multi-year panel study with global reach which explores the financial lives of small firms. By collecting high-frequency data across seven countries, the project explores the type of and seeks to understand how business frictions faced by business owners may prevent small businesses from growing. Instead of producing a static snapshot of a single point in time, the Small Firm Diaries methodology provides a dynamic understanding of businesses and the decisions they make via regular surveys and independent record-keeping by business owners. In Uganda, the project follows 750 firms in the carpentry sector participating in an experimental intervention designed to ease business frictions. The study also explores the demand-side market dynamics with a 1,200-respondent consumer survey.
Action
Between 2021 and 2024, EDI Global is conducting the census listing, baseline, financial diaries panel, consumer quality survey and endline data collections across five districts in the Central and Western Regions of Uganda. EDI Global’s responsibilities span the data collection cycle, from the programming of the survey tools in computer-assisted personal interviewing (CAPI) software to data quality assurance across all rounds. In the enumerator training, EDI Global reinforced protocols to build a high level of trust with respondents, which is necessary in this study, in which sensitive financial questions are asked, and permission is needed to complete detailed carpentry product quality assessments using carpentry tools on finished products. Enumerators trained respondents on the completion of ledger books: paper-based forms used to independently keep records of sales, orders or collections of products.
Impact
This study is ongoing, with the intervention involving carpenters due to be implemented in Uganda in 2023 and the endline survey due in mid-2024. In total, 5,500 in-person field surveys are expected to be conducted over the duration of the project. In the first 18 months of the project, EDI Global has completed:
field interviews with 750 business owners
phone survey interviews with 500 firms
ledger book forms
You can read the preliminary findings of the Small Firm Diaries study in other projects countries here.
