Assignment name: Baseline survey for “Evaluating the impact of the Realigning Agriculture to Improve Nutrition (RAIN) project, in Zambia.” | Approx. value of the contract (in current US$): US $ 203,886 | |
Country: Zambia Location within country: Mumbwa District | Duration of assignment (months): 7 | |
Name of Client: International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) | Total No. of staff-months of the assignment: 81 | |
Contact Person, Title/Designation, Tel. No./Address: | Danny Harvey: Then: Dr. Rahul Rawat, Research Fellow and Project Manager (IFPRI), International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), 2033 K Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20006, USA Now: Deputy Director, Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn & Child Health (maternal, newborn and child nutrition portfolio), Gates Foundation, 500 5th Ave. N, Seattle, WA 98109, USA; Email: [email protected]; Phone: +1 206-709-3100. | |
Start date (month/year): May 2011 Completion date (month/year): October 2011 | No. of professional staff-months provided by your consulting firm/organization or your sub consultants: 81 | |
Name of associated Consultants, if any: N/A | Name of senior professional staff of your consulting firm/organization involved and designation and/or functions performed (e.g. Project Director/Coordinator, Team Leader): Prof. Gelson Tembo – Survey Coordinator/Principal Investigator (PI); Chibamba Mwansakilwa – Field Manager Nathan Tembo – Field Manager Chiluba Chikoti – Field Manager Liseteli Ndiyoi – IT Specialist | |
Description of Project: The agreement describes the study as the baseline survey for an impact evaluation of the Realigning Agriculture to Improve Nutrition (RAIN) project in Zambia, designed as a cluster-randomized evaluation to measure the effects of three arms—control, agriculture alone, and agriculture plus health/nutrition—on nutrition and related household outcomes. The scope was explicitly set at a 3,000-household baseline sample (households with children in the required age groups) implemented in six wards of Mumbwa District, Central Province, with each interviewed household linked to a predefined intervention/control cluster; the household questionnaire covered topics including caregiver knowledge of IYCF, exposure to community programming, socio-economic status, food/social assistance, and agriculture practices, and it included anthropometry and hemoglobin measurement for children 0–59 months and mothers. The contract period ran from 16 May 2011 to 31 October 2011, with field delivery milestones specifying training completion by 11 June 2011, field launch on 13 June 2011, completion of field surveys and a field completion report by 31 July 2011, and submission of clean, fully documented datasets by 31 August 2011 (with the baseline/field reporting package due by end-September 2011). | ||
Description of actual services provided by your staff within the assignment: Palm Associates was responsible for delivering the full baseline survey implementation and data pipeline for the RAIN impact evaluation in six wards of Mumbwa District, from readiness to final datasets and reporting: finalize field preparations with IFPRI and Concern; obtain local permissions; develop the sampling frame and PPS-based selection of enumeration areas to achieve a 3,000-household sample across the three study arms; recruit and train enumerators and supervisors (including pilot/pretest and anthropometry/hemoglobin standardization); map/demarcate EAs, list households, and conduct the multi-topic household interviews; implement rigorous field QA (supervision, spot checks, revisits/validation, and daily/weekly progress reporting); build a high-quality CSPro double-entry system; complete double entry, verification, cleaning, labeling and documentation; submit cleaned datasets and data dictionaries to IFPRI; respond to IFPRI’s data queries; and produce the required baseline/field completion reporting and full survey documentation. | ||
