CERFE.ORG - Associazione di ricerca e formazione

Contacts

Cerfe - Associazione di ricerca e formazione in Roma

Measurement and mapping

Specificities and themes

CERFE has always tried to make a contribution to demonstrate and facilitate the measurability of social phenomena, both in absolute terms and in comparative terms, also with a view to enabling greater use of sociological knowledge for establishing and implementing social policies.

CERFE has thus contributed to devising, experimenting and also using, on a large scale, measures concerning such things as poverty, social exclusion, social capital, child vulnerability, food insecurity, the quality of public and collective services, and technological innovation.

In some cases, the measurement of phenomena was accompanied by their mapping when they concerned a given territory. Mapping facilitates comparisons between the various minimal territorial units or their aggregates in order to understand which areas have the greatest/lowest concentrations of the phenomena considered and thus which ones are “emerging” areas (e.g., as regards health policies, it is important to know how the health risk factor is distributed in a given territory) or which phenomena are more crucial in a certain region (e.g., the problem of communication in a certain area could be more serious than that of unemployment, of health service access and so on).

Some projects

Action-research on social capital in Yaoundè e Douala (2002–04; European Commission and Government of Cameroon);

Social exclusion and poverty in rural areas in Cameroon (2002–04,IFAD);

Action-research on poverty and social exclusion (2000–04, UN–DESA Secretariat; Italian Government);

Baseline studies of the Programa de Aseguranza Nutricional (2004, FAO; Italian Government);

Research on poverty and social exclusion, child vulnerability and social capital (in the municipalities involved in the Comprehensive Poor Child Care Programme in Nicaragua – PAININ 2) (2002–03; IDB);

development and testing in three European Countries of the RAMSEP model (Rapid Appraisal for Measuring Social Exclusion and Poverty) (2001–02, European Commission);

Action-research on Social Capital, poverty and social exclusion in the area hit by effects of Mitch hurricane in Central America America Centrale (2000–01, European Commission);

Action-research on social local capital in the area of Pisa (2000–01, European Commission);

Action-research on the urban poverty in Harare, Johannesburg and Luanda (1998–99, World Bank);

Action-research on social exclusion measurement in Argentina (1997–98, World Bank);

Research on sanitation services at the local level in the city of Addis Ababa and formulation of guidelines for a decentralised system to control sanitation risk (1996, World Bank - see also this other World Bank document )

Action-Research on the sociological factors in migratory flows in the Mediterranean area (1994, ILO);

Social Risk Analysis for projects funded by the World Bank (1994, World Bank);

Action-research on social exclusion in Central America and preparation of models for local planning and development (1992–94, UNDP, Italian Government);