Margie Roper and Heather Dixon presented today at the African Evaluation Association (AfrEA) 2022 Conference, in the “Navigating the political economy in Africa” stream, on the challenges and lessons learned in conducting research on human trafficking in South Africa.
Heather Dixon (left) and Margie Roper (right) at AfrEA 2022
Over the last 24 months, Khulisa and a team of experts have conducted applied research on a national trafficking in persons (TIP) study. Conducting research in vulnerable and hidden populations is challenging, and these challenges were compounded during COVID-19.
In their presentation, Margie and Heather shared their experiences navigating research in a multi-sectoral setting, and also shared three important lessons:
1. Stakeholder engagement is critical but it is difficult to gain buy-in and collaboration from the various departments and organizations.
2. Adaptive and flexible management of research is required.
3. Include a multi-sector platform as part of the evaluation design to enhance Research-Policy engagement and translation from the start.
This presentation focused on TIP. But these lessons are applicable when conducting research and evaluations in other sectors, such as gender-based violence (GBV), where social justice and rights-based responses are required.
