RURAL BANGLADESH - PreventionWeb

Methodology
d. Wealth Ranking Exercise
Following the focus group discussions, selected residents comprised of men and women
from the community were asked to participate in an exercise to determine:
• Perceptions of poverty and vulnerability;
• Wealth groupings by community-defined attributes;
• Proportions of community residents belonging to the identified wealth categories;
and
• Specific household identification for participation in the household questionnaire
survey, based on proportionality of wealth groups.
Community residents defined three or four wealth categories, ranging from “very poor” to
“poor” to “middle” or “middle poor” to “better-off” to “rich”. The wealth ranking exercise
provided the assessment team with key indicators of poverty and vulnerability by wealth
category, including (amongst other variables):
• Food consumption patterns,
• Access to land, livestock, and assets;
• Income sources; and
• Social capital within the community.
The wealth-ranking format is included as Annex K.
All of the qualitative matrices from the six communities are included as Annex N.
2.4.2 Household Survey
The nine teams of household survey enumerators spent approximately two weeks in the field
visiting 2760 households from 138 villages across the six WFP priority zones. The
enumerators administered a household questionnaire to each randomly selected household
participating in the survey. The English version of the household questionnaire is included
as Annex L. Enumerators recorded information at the household level into a Bengali
version of the questionnaire. TANGO developed a field manual, which is attached as Annex
M, in order to help guide the enumerators and supervisors
The survey questionnaire solicited data about:
• Demographics, including education and economic activities;
• Food consumption and food expenditure patterns;
• Household expenditures, incomes and assets;
• Savings & loan patterns;
• Household livelihood strategies;
• Health, maternal and child care;
• Shocks and coping strategies;
• Group membership and affiliation; and
• Access to safety nets.
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