Objectives: To select a representative sample of sites, covering various village and household types and geographical zones so as to cover various factors that may have a bearing on livelihood strategies and nutrition and household food security outcomes.
Description: The identification of a set of criteria is required for the selection of a well-balanced sample. The sample should as much as possible be representative of the majority of the people living in the area while also allowing the appraisal of the effects of specific internal and external variables that are important to nutrition and household food security. Selection criteria should be identified together with local authorities and organisations.
The selection criteria should provide a basis for the appraisal to cover all aspects of the problem under investigation. For that reason, the area needs to be divided into more or less homogenous zones representing distinct geographic, administrative, climatic, agro-ecological and other area-linked features. Zoning may also be based on specific vulnerability factors and livelihood strategies. If a preliminary causal analysis or field study was carried out prior to the selection of the sites (see Orientation and Planning Workshop) specific typologies and variables may have emerged that are important in better understanding or verifying hypotheses about causes and effects, and changes over time.
Secondly, the selected sites within each zone must also be typical for the more general situation in the zone, as they will need to serve as case studies. Sites should therefore be selected as to represent common characteristics of specific village typologies. The typology may be based on internal factors and include religious, cultural, ethnic and socio-economic characteristics, local institutions, etc. Also external factors need to be considered, like access to markets, communication channels, government and other services, existing local policies, statutory and customary legal frameworks, etc.
While one may be tempted to keep logistics as simple as possible, one should consider the importance of the location of the sites in rural areas where people may be dispersed versus more urban sites with high population densities. Equally important is that site selection covers the effects of remoteness on for example access to markets versus the impact of a more road-side location on socio-cultural aspects.
In general, sites will coincide with local administrative units. This may be a village, but also a sub-village unit or a group of villages. It is important to define the village concept within the formal as well as the traditional administrative context. Also the household concept will need to be defined from the local as well as the more formal administrative perspective. While this is important to understand secondary statistics, the household also constitutes the most basic socio-economic level and household interviews are considered an essential PRA tool.
Stakeholders: Local government as well as traditional authorities and institutions, indigenous and non-governmental organisations and the project team.
How to facilitate:
1. Determine the boundaries of the appraisal? The lower boundary could be the individual, household or community level, the upper boundary could be an agro-ecological zone or an administrative area like a district or a province.
2. Establish the understanding of local people and of the formal administration of what constitutes a "household" and a "village" and determine what definitions will be used.
3. From preliminary or previous research, identify known or assumed factors that have an impact on nutrition and household food security. Determine which of these factors is specific to a particular zone, village type or household type?
4. Carry out the zoning by relying on previous zonings or carry out your own zoning based on maps, secondary statistics and a field visit to the area.
5. Consult local administrations and traditional leaders on administrative boundaries at various levels. Note that traditional and formal administrative units do not necessarily coincide.
6. From secondary data or through preliminary field visits, determine village and household typologies.
7. Determine sample size based on practical considerations, like time available, remoteness of locations, number of zones and village types, and variability between villages and within villages. If locations are remote, sample size may be reduced and more time spent in a smaller number of sites. When variability between villages is higher than within, the number of villages can be increased and the number of household interviews decreased spending less time in each village. The same is valid for variability between zones and within zones.
8. Bases on the set of criteria that were established through points 1 to 7 select sites jointly with local officials.
9. Obtain the required permits for carrying out the appraisal from all relevant authorities, both formal and traditional ones.
10. Selection of households within a village is done with the community and only after the required mapping exercises have been completed.
Outputs:
For each zone, a map indicating the selected villages
Resources needed:
Time: 2 to 3 days for a preliminary field visit for zoning and 1 day for discussion with relevant authorities
Key informants from governmental and non-governmental organisations, as well as traditional leaders
Materials: Maps and secondary statistics on population, altitude, rainfall, land-use and cropping patterns, basic services like health centres, schools, water points, roads, etc.
