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Box T4. Measuring Impacts Against a Nominal Baseline
Stakeholder or focus group project participants were asked if they have experienced any increase
or decrease in income since the project started. This was done by firstly giving the focus group 10
counters in a basket representing their income before the project. They were then given another
10 counters and asked to show any relative changes in their household income by either adding
counters to the original basket of counters or by removing them (e.g., if four counters were added
to the original basket this would denote a 40% increase in income). The participants are then
asked to discuss how and why they decided on this (e.g.) 40% increase. This can be done
separately for all income sources if it is felt to be necessary and useful. If it is repeated with
sufficient groups, arithmetic means and standard deviations can be estimated.
Source: Catley et al., 2008.
Another approach is to use the same number of counters (say 100) for both the ‘before project’ and
‘current’ scoring, and asking participants to distribute the 100 counters between all the possible
explanatory factors or variables. This will show the relative importance of these factors at the two
time points in time, but not their absolute importance. This method could be used, for example, to
assess the distribution of household income from different sources.
The most important parts of these exercises are the discussions of what has caused any change in
the scores, and what consequences they think the identified change will have on their lives. It is
possible to repeat these exercises in subsequent years, although the comparison would only be valid
if it is done with the same people.
Matrix scoring and pairwise ranking
Matrix scoring can be used to identify and prioritize impact indicators or as a means of attributing
impacts to a project or project activity. In an example involving the selection of indicators for a
livelihoods and food security project in Niger, there were five main stages:
a) Identification by focus groups of five current food sources: (own farm) millet production;
(own farm) vegetable production; cereal bank (millet) purchases; other purchased food; and
(own farm) livestock production (milk and meat);
b) a pair-wise ranking of these food sources to identify the preferred food sources: these
turned out to be millet and vegetable production (Table T10);
c) a discussion of the reasons for preferring these food sources – the main reasons were the
volume and availability of the food produced, and the ease of selling them (millet and
vegetables are easier to sell than milk);
d) discussion and selection of possible food preference indicators, resulting in four main
indicators being selected: availability (quantity/volume); accessibility (easy to obtain/cheap);
income earning or saving potential; and nutritional or health value;
e) scoring of the food sources against the selected food preference indicators: this was done
for each indicator, with the participants scoring 50 counters between the five food sources
(see Table T11).
Social Impact Assessment of Land-Based Carbon Projects (1.0) – Part II | 51