“I would tell them (the Members of Parliament) to listen to the voice of people and they
should not focus on their personal interest alone” Older man, Kabul.

The Afghan experience with parliamentary democracy has been brief and turbulent. The process of creating an entirely new parliamentary body in a conflict-ridden country with few people with any legislative knowledge or experience was extremely challenging. Beyond citizen’s relationship to parliament itself, the body confronts many contentious issues, including access to information and women’s rights. 

Consequently, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) instituted a series of legislative strengthening programs, culminating, with the Assistance to Legislative Bodies (ALBA) Program, administered by Development Alternatives Incorporated (DAI). Work under ALBA is designed to “support the development of the Afghan Parliament to enable it to operate as an effective legislative, representative and oversight body.”

In order to explore perceptions of parliament and the provincial councils, as well public opinion toward these laws so that it could be taken into account by the Parliament, Charney Research conducted 12 focus groups and 12 in-depth interviews (IDIs) in Afghanistan in 2015 for DAI.

Download full report here: Report – Listen to the Voice of the People – Afghan ALBA Focus Group study

“No one, even the President, should be beyond the law” – Head Judge, Primary Court

With years of efforts and billions of dollars expended to rebuild Afghanistan’s justice system, this report is an initial attempt to indicate what has changed and how foreign assistance has helped. The aim is to provide an objective assessment of progress and problems in advancing the rule of law in Afghanistan in the past decade, and in particular efforts of the Justice Sector Support Program, promoting the rule of law supported by the State Department’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement (INL). This report also examines the issues raised in a report by the Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction (SIGAR), which found insufficient evaluation and evidence of progress of the program, and the challenges facing the JSSP.

Charney Research conducted 15 interviews with leaders and experts in the Afghan justice sector in Kabul in 2016. They included government officials, NGO and aid program leaders, and legal academics (specializing in either state or Islamic law). 

The study was conducted under the auspices of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, where Craig Charney, the principal investigator and president of Charney Research, is a Senior Research Fellow. Funding was provided by PAE Associates, the development contractor responsible for implementing JSSP.

Dowload full report here: Report – Survey of Afghan Rule of Law Efforts v4 – Charney Research

In a time of trade war, economic nationalism, and rapidly changing shifts in market production, demand, brands, and technology, marketers need an advance look to inform their plans and strategies. On behalf of American Marketing Association New York, Charney Research surveyed 500+ consumers and 500+ marketers, along with 13 marketing thought leaders in the two countries, United States and China.

The comprehensive sample provided a rich trove of data that culminated in groundbreaking research that covers topics that are critical for marketers today, including:

• The Rise and Rise of Digital Marketing

The U.S. and China and witnessing a massive transformation of advertising and marketing.  Social media and online ads are the new trend, while television and radio still lead among old media. This shift reflects the explosive growth of digital and mobile advertising during the last decade.

• Techlash is Here: Media Use Trends

Over the next three years, many Americans expect to ease off on social media and games, while broadcast radio, regular mail, and in-store are set to decline. In contrast, Chinese consumers foresee big growth in their use of most online media in the next three years but continue to shift away from old media.

• The Digital Disconnect: Consumer Concerns and Marketer Awareness

Americans are divided about marketing technology and the Internet of Things (IoT), while the Chinese are consistent technophiles when it comes to marketing technology.

Click here to dowload the full report 

Our research was conducted through the lens of eight building blocks of female workers’ experience: safe and equitable employment opportunities, access & control over economic resources and opportunities, education and training, social protection and childcare, reproductive health and family formation, freedom from violence, voice in society, and freedom of movement.

Ghana, the envy of many developing African nations, presents many positives across all three sectors with few differences between them. That being said, Ghana still faces the burdens of poverty and gender inequity and therefore there is room to grow. Breaking it down to women as direct employees and women in the supply chain, we see distinct disadvantages for those in the latter category.

Our general recommendations include: the review of compensation and benefits policies, particularly for non-permanent employees, sexual harassment abuse hotlines, free on-site medical care, flex time for mothers, more training opportunities at work, in and outside working hours, incubator space and low-interest credit for startups, employer-provided transport, and low-cost rental housing. 

For more specific recommendations and the full report click here.

Our research draws on insights from three industries—apparel, mining, and mobile telecommunications—with a specific focus on how these sectors affect women in Ghana, Kenya, and Tanzania. Charney Research – in conjunction with BSR, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and local partners – conducted the surveys in Ghana. For the qualitative phase, we conducted four focus groups, with a total of 28 working Ghanaian women; and for the quantitative phase, our sample size was 150 women.

Through our research, we found three main trends that informed our analysis: that working women all face common challenges, it takes more than a job to economically empower women, and companies need both local and global partners.

To read the full report, Click Here.

Charney Research and Oxford Economics, in partnership with NTT Data and Ingenico ePayments, surveyed 2000 consumers and 300 executives worldwide about their relationship with different forms of payments in 2016.  Talking to consumers in both the developed and developing world as well as businesses of all different types, generated results that might surprise you.  Among the insights our Future of Money Report provides: companies underestimate worldwide consumer enthusiasm for mobile payments, but that businesses also must do more to address consumer concerns about security.  Fast-growing businesses are more likely to accept mobile payments, and it can be an effective way to reach consumers in the developing world.   

Click here to read the full report, and see what actions businesses can take to stay ahead of the mobile payment curve.

Click here to register for our webinar on The Future of Money.

The survey found more than half of consumers believe mobile wallets are less secure than cash—yet nearly 60 percent of executives say mobile money will build their business because it’s safe.

In August 2016, NTT DATA, Ingenico, Oxford, and Charney surveyed 2,000 global consumers and 300 companies worldwide to investigate sentiments, expectations and concerns about the future of money. Our study showed customers in developed and developing countries alike are interested in using mobile money, but companies must do more to ease their security concerns if adoption is to become widespread.

“Fear is a powerful inhibitor, and fraud fear is top of mind for many consumers,” says Peter Olynick, senior practice lead, Retail Banking, NTT DATA Consulting, Inc. “Consumers are not just worried about losing one or two transactions, they fear having their identity stolen. If financial institutions can mitigate those fears and improve merchant adoption for mobile, we will see consumer adoption rates begin to accelerate.”

Other important findings from the study include:

• Consumers around the world understand the benefits of mobile money
• 60 percent of consumers agree that mobile money enhances their purchase experience,
  50 percent say mobile money drives loyalty to their financial institution or online merchant
• Security concerns are undermining mobile payments
• More than half of consumers believe mobile wallets are less secure than cash
• Nearly 75 percent of consumers say guarantees against monetary fraud would encourage them to use mobile payments, but only 44 percent of businesses currently offer or plan to offer such guarantees
• Only 25 percent of consumers say online and mobile transactions are the safest form of transaction
• Companies need to step up security authentication
• Consumer appetite for sophisticated biometric features like facial and iris recognition is strong. However, most businesses continue to rely on traditional passwords and finger scans
• Fewer than a third of companies globally currently use or plan to use biometrics like face, voice and iris recognition to secure mobile devices
• Security-focused consumers prefer multi-step authentication for mobile payments (German and Scandinavian consumers, who trust passwords most, are the exceptions)

The complete report, “The Future of Money,” will be published in January 2017

Growth stabilizing in China? Not so fast.

At least one group is warning that the situation is likely far worse than official statistics may indicate, saying that growth in the world’s second-largest economy is in “dangerous” territory.

A private survey by China Beige Book International showed that a number of metrics it tracks in China — national sales revenue, prices, profits, hiring, borrowing, and business spending — were all weaker in the fourth quarter, compared to the previous period.

To top that off, all sectors from retail to transportation have suffered, with the country’s two most important industries — manufacturing and services — also on the decline. The group also reported that wage growth slowed while labor supply tightened.

“The government may not be in the mood to acknowledge officially that the slowdown has worsened, but … [it] will be hard to hide,” wrote the report’s authors Leland Miller and Craig Charney.

There’s really no question about it: China’s economy is slowing — government figures put GDP growth at its slowest quarterly pace since the financial crisis. What matters is how quickly China is spiraling down, and whether the country’s economy can adjust fast enough to counter a sudden deterioration. But official numbers seem largely on track to hit Beijing’s official target of around 7% growth for the year, prompting critics to say the government is massaging the data in their favor.

Still, experts have noted that for China to maintain continued growth, the government must stay committed to painful economic reforms, and move from a manufacturing and export-led economy to one driven by services and consumption.

China has also introduced some “mini-stimulus” measures all year in efforts to support growth, but has largely refrained from pulling out a “big bazooka” package to boost the economy.

The New York-based China Beige Book has been conducting private quarterly surveys in China since 2012, modeling its studies after the U.S. Federal Reserve’s Beige Book survey. Around 2,000 firms and 160 bankers across the country, and in a variety of sectors were surveyed for this report.

The government’s National Bureau of Statistics is due to report full year GDP growth figures in January.

China’s economy isn’t as weak as it may look, according to a private survey from a New York-based research group that says it’s a myth the nation’s slowdown is intensifying.

“No collapse is nigh” in the aftermath of the stock market plunge and currency devaluation, according to the third-quarter China Beige Book, published by CBB International and modeled on the survey compiled by the Federal Reserve on the U.S. economy. Capital expenditure rebounded slightly in the period and the services sector showed strength, the report said.

“Perceptions of China may be more thoroughly divorced from facts on the ground than at any time in our nearly five years of surveying the economy,” CBB President Leland Miller wrote in the report. “Global sentiment on China has veered sharply bearish–too bearish. While we have long cautioned clients against relying on rosy official views of the Chinese economy, we believe sentiment has swung substantially too far in the opposite direction.”

The report describes a mixed, rather than disastrous, picture of the world’s second-largest economy. Weakening exports, deepening factory-gate deflation and a manufacturing slowdown have highlighted the risk of this year’s expansion undershooting Premier Li Keqiang’s target for growth of about 7 percent.

The survey’s findings contrast with deepening skepticism over China’s outlook and policy makers’ ability to steer the economy. Fed Chair Janet Yellen last week referred to concerns about the “deftness” of China’s response to downside risks, while Goldman Sachs Group Inc. Chief Executive Officer Lloyd Blankfein called the handling of its stock market collapse “ham-handed.”

A Bloomberg monthly gross domestic product tracker remained below the government’s goal in August with a reading of 6.64 percent. The nation’s official factory gauge slumped to a three-year low last month.

“Manufacturing is neither a microcosm of the economy nor its bellwether, and performances in other sectors buoyed overall results,” Miller wrote in the report withCraig Charney, director of research and polling. They said retail and property weakened, yet were still stable and improved from a year ago.

Confidence in China’s prospects has been undermined by wild stock-market swings. The Shanghai Composite Index closed 1.9 percent higher Monday at 3,156.54, paring the decline to 39 percent from its seven-year high in June.

The report was based on surveys of more than 2,100 firms across China and interviews with bankers, managers and executives. CBB began the series in mid-2012, when its inaugural survey indicated a pick-up in growth from early that year, a forecast later borne out.

An April 2013 report corroborated signs of damage to luxury goods makers from President Xi Jinping’s anti-graft crackdown. A December 2014 issue indicated expansion in services was stabilizing the economy, with little need for “extra juice” of stimulus — yet continuing weakness in growth led policy makers to step up easing in ensuing months.

The current report shows that services, which account for more than half of China’s economy, show improvement in sales, pricing, volumes and capital expenditure. CBB said the slowdown was concentrated in the public sector, where revenue growth slowed moderately, while private businesses showed a “slight downtick” from a higher growth rate.

The authors said it’s a myth that the worst factory gate deflation in six years in August signals a wider risk. “Arguments that producer deflation and consumer inflation are both slicing into firm profits are further undercut by the responses of thousands of firms in our national survey,” they wrote.

“The best situation for most economies is stable and low inflation,” the authors wrote. “China appears to be enjoying exactly that, notwithstanding widespread fear of deflation.”

The report also found that job growth inched up, company profits improved, and wage growth moderated mildly. Capital expenditure picked up for a second quarter following four quarters of broad decline, the authors wrote.

There are well-known reports on corruption issues – but they are not much use if you’re struggling with the specific problems facing particular companies, industries, or jurisdictions.  The best-known measures of corruption focus on reputations, not behavior; the public sector, not private business; and general, national-level information, not the granular detail needed for policy or enforcement.  Moreover, studies evaluating anti-corruption efforts — tracking their results and revealing problems — are exceedingly rare. 

There is a solution that can give you solid, reliable information on corruption and compliance: the right kind of survey research.  Surveys are the best way to measure the extent of concerns and zero in on the places where they are most serious.  After you institute compliance programs, they are the most persuasive source of evidence that they are working.  This article will explain how you can use surveys to gain vital information on corruption and compliance that can decide the success or failure of your project or program.  Without them, anti-corruption efforts are based largely on guesswork and hope.

Corruption:  The Known Unknown

Everyone knows corruption is pervasive in many emerging markets, yet specifics are hard to find.  The principal information source on corruption worldwide is published by Transparency International, the Corruption Perceptions Index.   Focused on misconduct in government, it draws on surveys of perceptions of government corruption and the likelihood of companies in particular countries to offer bribes to officials.  To provide an accurate picture of corruption, behavioral data — what actually happens — is far more useful than reputational information – what people think happens.  Unfortunately, TI asks no questions regarding company behavior, and its sole behavioral measure is a poll question as to whether citizens have paid bribes to any government officials anywhere.  Consequently, little information is provided on corrupt practices within companies or in marketing within the private sector.  Moreover, even regarding official corruption, results are available only at the national level, not broken out by sector, region, or even affected level of government or ministry.

Yet surveys can be highly effective in revealing improper or improved behavior, because people will disclose it if they can do so safely and anonymously.  Within an organization, if some workers are stealing or breaking the rules, there are usually others among their peers who are left out or annoyed by this.  When companies pay bribes as part of doing business, many executives will discuss this in a survey, either because they see it as normal or feel unhappy at being shaken down.  Ordinary citizens required to make illicit payments resent this and are often anxious to speak out about this.  The key is assuring them that the interview really is anonymous and will protect their privacy. 

Diagnosing the Problem: the Four Flows of Corruption

Analysis of corruption should begin by identifying which of the four principal avenues for corruption is in question.

• Employee misconduct (theft, procedural violations, favoritism) – we call this work force-business malpractice, or WFB corruption.
• Marketing to other firms is tainted by payments, gifts, or kickbacks – this is business to business or B2B corruption.
• Government officials receive payment or gifts from businesses – that is business to government or B2G corruption.
• Citizens pay bribes or give gifts to officials – this is citizen to government or C2G corruption.

Each of these can be revealed by an appropriate survey methodology.

Misdeeds by the workforce (WFB corruption) can be measured by a workforce survey. 

Below you see the results of a staff survey in a large firm with dozens of divisions (with the names changed, of course).  (See Fig. 1) The proportions of staff who saw records falsified ranges from 11% to 2%, while the proportion who did not report misconduct varies from 66% to 36%.  One unit, in A-town, is among the worst scorers on both measures.  This kind of survey makes it possible to assess problems overall and target the areas where they are worst.

Figure 1. Malpractice in a company.

This survey was done online, which makes it easy to give all the firm’s personnel a chance to participate.  Many people also feel more confidence in the anonymity of a survey administered by computer than in one where they speak to an interviewer face-to-face or by phone.

Corrupt practices in marketing (B2B corruption) are trackable via business surveys.  Business people tend to regard providing or receiving illicit payments or gifts in order to do business as a nuisance at best and a source of shame at worst.  In our experience they have been willing to discuss this, particularly where the problem is worst.  Surveys of both sellers and buyers are useful in this regard.  It’s particularly useful to compare the results; where they agree, as they tend to, you have confirmation of a problem.  

Business payments to government officials (B2G corruption) also can be followed by business surveys. The same principle applies here, even more strongly:  business people don’t like to be shaken down.

Figure 2.  B2G Corruption

For example,   in our survey of companies in Afghanistan, 55% said they had to pay bribes or give gifts to officials to stay in business

Few – just 6% — refused to respond to the question.  Moreover, they were even willing to be specific about the amounts and recipients. 

Nearly one-fourth said that bribes took up more than 10% of their business costs.  Local government and customs officials the worst offenders.  With this sort of data, it becomes possible to plan and prioritize anti-corruption efforts.  (If you’d like to see more data on corruption from the survey this chart is drawn from, have a look at our Afghan business survey.)

Surveys of citizens can paint a portrait of corruption in officials’ interactions with the public (C2G corruption).  Even more than business people, citizens tend to resent demands from officials with their hands out for payment.  (The notion that the public regards these as “user fees” for public services is largely a myth.)  As long as they feel it is safe, they are happy to discuss bribery.  Thus, for instance, while corruption is widely considered a problem in the Muslim world, our comparative surveys showed big differences in its incidence between countries.  Just one in eight Indonesians and one in six Pakistanis said they had to bribe and official in the previous year, compared to nearly two-thirds of Algerians and seven out of ten Iraqis. 

Surveys of the behavior of workers, businesses, and citizens thus represent vital diagnostic tools for anti-corruption programs of every sort.  Unlike vague surveys focused on reputation, they make it possible to measure the extent of problems as well as to learn their severity and identify the specific areas or organizations that pose the greatest problem.  In this way, they are essential management tools for developing and planning anti-corruption work.

Assessing Compliance: Identifying Program Impact

After compliance programs have commenced, surveys are the best way to show if they are making a difference – a big concern for compliance officers.  Corrupt practices, and even more, procedural violations, normally occur within large organizations which are not very transparent.  Proving that even a well-intentioned and well-designed program is making the difference which decision-makers or regulators seek can be very difficult.  But surveys can help here too. 

The same sort of research that reveals the extent of problems can also help show whether compliance efforts were having an effect.   For instance, in one former socialist country, the authorities were trying to combat under-the-table payments from patients to doctors as they transitioned the health care system to a market basis.  We were asked a simple question: was it working? We showed that despite the government’s best efforts, the problem was getting worse, and that stronger measures were needed. 

Figure 3.  Measuring Compliance

Surveys can also look inside organizations to gauge the impact of process-oriented efforts.  You can use a variety of measures for this – subjective, objective, and behavioral. 

We used all of these in the large firm mentioned above.  (See Figure 3.)  We looked at whether staffers felt ethics training had helped – a subjective test; whether they knew there were misconduct reporting procedures – an objective one; and whether offenders were held accountable – a behavioral test.  In this way, it becomes possible to see how strong the linkage is between assessments of program impact, increased knowledge resulting from it, and change in the behaviors compliance efforts seek. 

Figure 3.  Assessing compliance.

IN SUM:  If you are concerned with anti-corruption efforts, whether in the business, international development, or security world, you should be putting surveys to work in them.  They are the most accurate diagnostic tools for identifying the nature, extent, and causes of malpractices.  Equally important, they can let you demonstrate that things are getting better after you begin your efforts – or help you identify what still needs fixing.  No other source of information can help you understand and measure systemic problems and changes as clearly and effectively.   They can give you – and those you report to – confidence that you have taken the measure of the problem and have a handle on it. If you don’t use them, you are wandering in the dark – which is hardly the way to get where you want to go.   

Craig Charney is president of Charney Research, a New York based survey research firm specializing in emerging markets and crisis countries. 

Other Charney work on corruption that may be of interest:

Corruption in China: What Companies Need to Know

Afghan Business Attitudes on the Economy, Government, and Business Organizations

Follow @CharneyResearch