Researchers

Ceren Baysan, Emily Eisner, Kristin Fabbe, Lisa Spantig

Abstract

The study tracked how the COVID-19 pandemic impacted Syrian-owned small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Turkey during 2020. Researchers used  phone surveys to understand the business environment for refugee-owned firms during Covid-19 and to assess data quality collected via phone surveys. They found that 83 percent of SMEs that were operating in February (before the pandemic hit) were still operating in July, and this slightly increased to 88 percent by October 2020. Between July and October, the research team found that the percentage of business owners who reported lower sales decreased from approximately 70 to 50 percent. This data suggests that the pandemic did not significantly impact the number of businesses operating. Overall, all factors related to sales improved by more than 20 percentage points; including, access to capital (25 percentage point increase), consumer demand (27 percentage point increase ), worker absenteeism (36 percentage point decrease), and difficulty in devoting time to business (43 percentage point decrease). The only factor that deteriorated between July and October was the share of business owners reporting a reduced availability of resources to run their business (decrease from 75 to 92 percent). While most indicators of business performance improved, researchers  found that business owners became more pessimistic about future sales. The sample was drawn from the Syrian Economic Forum's database.

The study tracked how the COVID-19 pandemic impacted Syrian-owned small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Turkey during 2020. Researchers used  phone surveys to understand the business environment for refugee-owned firms during Covid-19 and to assess data quality collected via phone surveys. They found that 83 percent of SMEs that were operating in February (before the pandemic hit) were still operating in July, and this slightly increased to 88 percent by October 2020. Between July and October, the research team found that the percentage of business owners who reported lower sales decreased from approximately 70 to 50 percent. This data suggests that the pandemic did not significantly impact the number of businesses operating. Overall, all factors related to sales improved by more than 20 percentage points; including, access to capital (25 percentage point increase), consumer demand (27 percentage point increase ), worker absenteeism (36 percentage point decrease), and difficulty in devoting time to business (43 percentage point decrease). The only factor that deteriorated between July and October was the share of business owners reporting a reduced availability of resources to run their business (decrease from 75 to 92 percent). While most indicators of business performance improved, researchers  found that business owners became more pessimistic about future sales. The sample was drawn from the Syrian Economic Forum's database.

Project Outcomes of Interest

 Take-up of an information service by business owner “seeds”; retention of information by business owner “seeds” and recipients; self-reported behavior and participation in information sharing by business owner “seeds” and recipients; information evolution throughout a network; self-reported health behavior by recipients; business outcomes

Partners

Syrian Economic Forum 

Impact Goals

Project Data Collection Mode

Implementing Organization

Syrian Economic Forum

Results Status

No Results Yet