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Box T1. General Data Collection and Analysis Methods for SIA
Participatory wealth or well-being ranking
This is usually carried out with key informants to gain an understanding of local perceptions of well-being,
and to divide households into several (often four or more) wealth or well-being categories that can be used
as a sampling frame for household surveys. For example, in the Nepal Swiss Community Forestry Project a
well-being ranking exercise was carried out for each Forest User Group (FUG). Following a mapping
exercise to identify all households in the FUG and consultations on poverty or well-being categories
resulting in six categories (capable, improving poor, coping poor, declining poor, extreme poor and
incapable poor), ‘representative’ key informants of each FUG sorted cards with household head names (or
could be some other identifying factor) into the six agreed categories (PROFOR, 2008).
Focus group discussions
Discussions on specific topics (often using an interview checklist) are held with small (4-10) groups,
sometimes selected to be representative of stakeholder sub-groups (e.g. women, elderly, poorest, landless,
etc.). Focus groups are typically used early on in a study to obtain a general understanding of important
issues or at a later stage to gain an in-depth understanding, e.g., of a specific issue that has arisen from a
household survey.
Rapid Rural Appraisal (RRA) or Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) tools
RRA and PRA use the same set of visual tools but with a slightly different emphasis. RRA is typically used by
researchers working in a more extractive mode, while PRA - now often called Participatory Learning and
Action (PLA) – focuses on stimulating research and analysis by local people. Guides to RRA/PRA tools
include Pretty et al. (1996), PROFOR (2008), Evans et al. (2006), FAO (1990) and Catley et al. (2008).
Key informant interviews
Semi-structured interviews with key actors both inside and outside the community can be used either to
obtain a general understanding of issues or to cross-check findings from other sources. They can also be
effective for collecting household economic data (Richards et al., 2003).
Household surveys
Questionnaires on a random or purposive sample of households are most effective when they are short and
comprise mainly of closed (rather than open-ended) questions, e.g., to gather demographic, financial (but
not income), education or health data. A criterion for deciding whether to use a household survey is the
level of inter-household variation expected in a variable, e.g., a survey can be good for livestock ownership
or agricultural production; but for the farming calendar or the time needed for laboring tasks, for example,
PRA is more efficient. TRANSLINKS (2007) and Richards et al (2003) provide guidance on household
surveys, including sampling approaches. The costs of implementing and supervising a well-designed and
field-tested survey should not be underestimated; memory recall also has its limitations – the best recall
period is the last 48 hours, and frequent small events are difficult to record accurately (David Wilkie,
personal communication)
Case studies
If time and budget allow, detailed studies can be made of a specific unit (group, locality, organization, etc.)
involving open-ended questions. This results in a more in-depth understanding of key issues, although
generalizations can be dangerous.
Participant observation
The ‘anthropological’ approach involves researchers living or working with communities so that they can
directly observe the impacts of a project on people’s daily lives, but has obvious time and cost constraints.
Source: Schreckenberg et al. (2010) and other sources cited above.
Social Impact Assessment of Land-Based Carbon Projects (1.0) – Part II | 36