Campaigns to End Violence against Women and Girls - Virtual ...

7.7 BASELINE ASSESSMENT
WHAT IS A BASELINE ASSESSMENT?
A baseline assessment provides information on the situation the campaign aims to
change. It provides a critical reference point for assessing changes and impact, as it
establishes a basis for comparing the situation before and after an intervention, and for
making inferences as to the effectiveness of the campaign. Baseline assessments
should be conducted before the actual campaign intervention starts so as to serve as a
benchmark for examining what change is triggered by the intervention. A baseline
assessment is a crucial element in formative campaign research and planning, and in
any monitoring and evaluation framework.
The type of data to be included in the baseline depends on the goals the campaign aims
to achieve, the theory of change underlying the campaign, and the change indicators
that are defined in the monitoring and evaluation framework. Baseline information
should be carried out in such a way that the same type of data can be collected after the
intervention, in order to compare the results and assess the extent of change, or lack
thereof. A PESTEL analysis can be useful to map legal and political external factors,
especially in advocacy/institutional change campaigns.
Example: If the campaign goal is to ensure that police staff throughout the country
receive specialized training on work with VAW survivors, then the baseline should
include an assessment of existing police rules and procedures regarding VAW cases,
existing training curricula and the legal framework, and police knowledge and practice
regarding these rules and procedures.
Good sources of information for baseline assessments include: Official statistics,
existing survey results and quality research reports, journal and newspaper articles.. It
may also be necessary to conduct one’s own baseline research on specific campaign
issues or campaign methods and tools, particularly if there is limited existing data and
information. In this case, baseline research could include a range of strategic planning
exercises including formative situation analysis, stakeholder analysis, and resource
mapping. See Campaign planning for more guidance.
BASELINE SURVEYS
Campaigns often target large audiences, yet most campaigns will not command
sufficient financial and human resources to undertake a population-wide survey. A
baseline thus needs ideally to capture data from a statistically representative sample of
the target population. To do this, it is common to apply tools used in development
programmes, such as participatory assessments and KAP surveys, which rely on
qualitative exploration with relatively small samples.
Baseline surveys such as KAP surveys can be conducted in behaviour-change
campaigns to assess Knowledge, Attitudes and Practices of the target audience with
respect to the campaign issue. Extensively applied in public health programmes, e.g. in
HIV/AIDS-related projects, KAP surveys combine qualitative information and quantitative
data obtained from relatively small samples of the target population, e.g. through focus
group discussions and questionnaire-based surveys.
One challenge to bear in mind when conducting surveys related to VAW is that the issue
is most often an under-reported and sensitive one, and many people may therefore
274
Campaigns December 2011