Multi-country impact assessment using Participatory Statistics with DFID-FAO-UNICEF
Clients. Department for International Development UK (DFID), Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), UNICEF
Period. 2011-2014
Locations. Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Zimbabwe
Sectors. Cash transfers, social protection.
This was a six-country impact assessment, that included the use of Parti Stats, of the contribution of cash transfers to household economy, social networks and local economy under the DFID-FAO-UNICEF ‘From Protection to Production’ (PtoP) project. The impact assessment was conducted under a contract held by Oxford Policy Management (OPM).
Using participatory tools, beneficiaries generated statistics to estimate and analyse the contribution of the cash transfer to their household income and expenditure. The research confirmed that cash transfers provided a valuable source of additional income for extremely vulnerable beneficiary households, whether elderly women looking after orphaned grandchildren or beneficiary households coping with health shocks.
Through group-based quant-qual analysis, randomly sampled beneficiaries were able to reflect on just how significant this extra income stream was for their households. In some instances, beneficiaries were able to reduce their reliance on working as casual labourers or increase their investment in livelihood productivity, diversification or trading. As part of the participatory process, research feedback sessions were held with each sampled community at the end of each period of fieldwork. These enabled validation and discussion of the teams’ working findings. Additional feedback sessions were held with government officials at district and national levels to consider the operational implications of the research findings.
