IP-2: Number of households assisted to exit poverty by the interventions

Definition: Number of households whose per capita income has been increased to surpass the poverty line.

Unit of Measure: Count of households

Disaggregated by: Poverty line, ggeographic location (national, sub-national), gender of the household head (male, female)
Poverty lines: $1.25 per capita per day, $2 per capita per day, other nationally-defined poverty line

Method of Calculation:
At baseline:

• Estimate the total household income

• Divide total household income by number of household members to derive the baseline per capita income both for control and treatment households (i_b). If the figure computed is below the poverty line, count the households

• Add all households for which the average per capita income is below the poverty line (n_o).

  At subsequent/endline evaluation/study:

• Draw sample from both intervention (treatment) and non-intervention (control) households

• Collect data not only on household income (non-farm, agricultural & income from promoted enterprise(s)), but also on factors that determine poverty status/income (X).

• Estimate a linear econometric model, where the dependent variable is the increase in per capita income ie-ib. Estimate the model using standard errors robust to heteroskedasticity and control for multicollinearity.

  ie-ib=αX+βI+ε
  I is the intervention dummy, and the value of β is the contribution of the intervention to the increase in per capita income.

• Add β to the baseline income among intervention (treatment) households (ib) and determine the number of households below the poverty line (ne).

• The number of households assisted to exit poverty can then be computed as no-ne.

• Extrapolate the results to the extent that the study design permits.

Data sources: Intervention and non-intervention households

Data collection method: Household survey with household income and expenditure module

Data collection and reporting responsibility: M&E Unit, SEP team

Data Collection and Reporting Frequency: Baseline, endline

Evidence required:
For internal evaluation or research studies: Study protocol, data collection tools, dataset, report, re-executable data management and analysis file;
For external evaluation or research studies: Request for proposals (RFP) document, inception report, final report, dataset, re-executable data management and analysis file

Rationale: Contribution towards poverty reduction is within the mission of ICARDA, and this aligns with the CGIAR Strategy and Results Framework and the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goal 1 (No Poverty). This indicator will therefore quantify ICARDA's contribution.

Comments and limitations: Measuring data for this indicator requires early planning for the evaluation such that data from both intervention and non-intervention households is collected both at baseline and endline, at requires careful impementation of interventions to ensure that a control group of sufficient size is maintained to enable endline evaluation. In addition, the project staff need to work jointly with the M&E team to ensure that the control group is not contaminated in the course of project delivery.
A major pitfall to evaluation approach is the ethics related to excluding a section of potentail beneficiaries from the intervention to allow for evaluation of the impact of the intervention on poverty. Project managers are advised to plan interventions for the control group, to be delivered after the endline/impact evaluation; and as such the evaluation ought to be carriedout within a few months to allow for intervetions to be delivered to the control group.