SEIA MSME explorer

Socio Economic Impact Assessment (SEIA)

After the August 4th Explosion, the UNDP conducted a Socio-Economic Impact Assessment (SEIA) to assess the impact of the blast. The self reported survey submissions were collected over a period of 6 days (week of 17 August 2020) using a combination of Facebook Ads, Google display ads, phone call surveys, and sms. All channels targeted those located in or surrounding the geographic area of the blast and surrounding neighborhoods of Beirut.

To ensure a post-blast recovery process that is inclusive and just, it is essential to design a holistic response that addresses all different types of vulnerabilities, and incorporates social groups with the most intersecting vulnerabilities. These measures need to integrate the multiple timescales at which a recovery is designed, particularly an immediate –emergency- response and a long-term response.

As such, our work on SEIA was based on the need to collect disaggregated socio-economic and geo-referenced data that identifies people’s multiple indicators of vulnerability, namely: age, gender, nationality, race, location of residence and work, income, occupation, education, family status, physical and mental health status, tenure status, etc.

This data can help understand which people face multiple compounding disadvantages and identify the barriers to reducing their vulnerabilities. Through the examination of such people- driven data, deprived and marginalized social groups can be empowered through civic engagement, integrated and just policies, interventions and budgets can be voiced and enacted.

This rapid process resulted in  5,901  households surveyed / 3,680  businesses surveyed

*For surveys such as the SEIA, a sample of people are assessed instead of all inhabitants, which can only be achieved through a census. While censuses offer comprehensive and valuable information, they are relatively extremely costly and take years to plan for and to conduct. In disaster situations, a well designed survey provides essential information within a short time frame to allow for rapid response. The SEIA dataset is self-reported and collected online, which means it cannot be comprehensively representative, in all data analysis, it is essential to understand the accuracy of the results. SEIA was collected within weeks of the blast, reaching approximately 6,000 people, which is a considerable sample size and allows for insights to be generated at the Beirut level.

MSME SEIA Data Explorer

Segments of the socioeconomic impact assessment (SEIA) dataset were used for the multidimensional vulnerability index analysis, which was aimed to help identify where compounded vulnerabilities exist to enable targeted and prioritized relief, recovery, and reform program design, using the leave no one behind value system.

To further enable that process, the results from the SEIA are presented below through interactive graphs that can be filtered to the neighborhood level. Users can explore the data to understand Beirut level insights; they can also use the neighborhood filter to understand how the results change when considering individual neighborhoods.

Age & Gender

Nationality

Owned / Rented

Sector

Main market for business

Impacted Neighborhoods

The previous SEIA Data Explorer section allows users to explore the data, question by question, across all neighborhoods. In this section, we present a different tool that allows users to dive into the data for the neighborhoods most affected by the blast. Due to reduced overall sample size for the MSME survey, when compared to the households survey, the data for the most impacted neighborhoods are aggregated rather than each neighborhood presented as a separate section. The neighborhoods are: Achrafieh, Bachoura, Beirut Central District, Marfaa, Medawar, Minet el-Hosn, Remeil, Saifeh, and Zoukak el-Blatt, which represent 1,708 of the survey responses, 54% of overall responses. 

The interactive exploratory tool displays each household as a single point. Explore the results by using the group by, shade by, and compare by functions. Hover over a point to see the full profile for that business. 

Key findings

  • 97% of businesses in the areas closest to the blast sustained some level of damage. 
  • More than half of businesses experienced major structural damage or were totally destroyed. One third of those businesses estimate direct and indirect losses to be between $10,000 and $50,000. Another third expect losses to be between $50,000 and $1,000,000. Finally about 15% of businesses that suffered major damage or total destruction expect losses to be over $1,000,000. 
  • Only 17% of MSMEs expect to receive rehabilitation support from the government, but 37% expect to receive some support from UN agencies and NGOs. This indicates a low level of confidence in the government, and some level of hope to be supported by NGOs. However, in terms of adaptive capacity, businesses generally seem to not seem to expect support for the recovery process.