INTRACOF - The impact of intra household decision making on the sustainability, efficiency and equitability of household farming in sub-Saharan Africa.
Description
This data was collected in the framework of the MSCA-IF-2015-EF - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowship project with the acronym INTRACOF. This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No 702964. https://cordis.europa.eu/project/rcn/200274/factsheet/en This research project assessed the extent to which more participatory intrahousehold decision-making about production and resource allocation contributes to more sustainable, efficient and equitable household farming systems in sub-Saharan Africa, more specifically smallholder coffee farming systems in central Uganda (Masaka-Kalungu and Mubende) and south-west Tanzania (Mbeya). An intervention in which spouses in household are intensely coached in participatory decision-making about production, resource allocation and income expenditure was randomly encouraged among Ugandan and Tanzanian smallholder coffee farming households. A lab-in-the-field experiment was conducted at endline which permits to appraise if provision and appropriation behaviour by spouses in households who were coached in, respectively made aware about, participatory intrahousehold decision-making is more cooperative, than in control households. The impact of participatory intrahousehold-decision making on the sustainability, efficiency and equitability of the outcomes from provision and appropriation behaviour in household farming systems can be studied with using the baseline and endline individual survey data collected among spouses in treatment and control households. The intervention, implemented by the Hanns R. Neumann Stiftung (HRNS) had two stages (https://www.hrnstiftung.org/gender/). In an initial stage, awareness raising couple seminars were organised. In the couple seminars, which take three to four hours, the HRNS gender officer guides couples through a self-assessment of the current division of roles, responsibilities, decision-making power and control over resources in their household. In a next stage of the intervention, a selection of couples who participated in the couple seminars goes through a package of activities during which the couples are intensively coached on how to implement participatory intrahousehold decision-making. A first activity is a one-day workshop for couples focused on putting participatory planning and decision making into practice. Drafting a joint household farm plan and budget is an essential tool for this activity. Secondly, the couples receive a subsequent household visit during which the HRNS gender officer continues the coaching and provides support with the implementation of the farm plan and budget. Thirdly, women attend a women leadership training to strengthen their participation and leadership skills within farmer groups and in their household. The final activity is a follow-up workshop in which couples share experiences and self-evaluate the coaching package.
Files
Steps to reproduce
To evaluate the differential impact of the two stages of the intervention - the couple seminars and the subsequent intensive coaching package - through which participatory intrahousehold decision-making is introduced in smallholder coffee farming households, a randomised control trial (RCT) using an encouragement design was set up. We encouraged a random selection of couples who participated in the couple seminars to take up the intensive coaching package. We label these the intensively coached group (referred to as T). The encouragement consisted of a personal phone call and a printed personalised invitation for the first activity, accompanied by a folder with a notebook and two pens in Mubende, and a second chance to participate if the couple missed an activity. Out of the couples who participated in couple seminars, some couples were randomly selected to remain a control group of couples who received a couple seminar (referred to as CA). As these couples can be part of the same producer organisations as the intensively coached couples, spillovers from the interaction with the latter are possible. The Mubende sub-sample includes an additional control group of couples who have received a couple seminar but were not exposed to spillovers (referred to as CB) because we avoided the presence of intensively coached couples in the producer organisations by delaying that intervention until after endline data collection. A final control group, labelled the group without exposure to the intervention (referred to as CC), is composed of couples randomly selected among coffee farming households who are member of producer organisations connected to HRNS across the same districts but where HRNS did not implement its intervention. Households are not fundamentally different nor live in other circumstances, and are far enough to avoid spillovers. Timing: In Masaka RCT started in November 2015, endline data collection January-April 2017. In Mubende RCT started in November 2016, endline data collection January-March 2018. In Mbeya RCT started in November 2016, endline data collection January-March 2018. Data: UNIQ_ID is the unique individual identifier, a code with _1 at the end is the husband and the same code with _2 at the end is the wife in the household. UNIQ_ID_AR is the UNIQ_ID collated with an area identifier (Masaka, Mubende, Mbeya). COMPL_NONCOMPLcln/CMPL_NOCMPL: Indicates if household complied with encouragement status (for Masaka this data is in a separate file) E_ in front of the variable name indicates it is endline data HB_ in front of the variable data indicates it is data collected from the husband (in wide format) Monetary data: for Masaka and Mubende (Uganda) in Ugandan Shilling and for Mbeya (Tanzania) in Tanzanian Shilling Data collection instruments: Baseline and endline questionnaires for individual surveys in Masaka, Mubende and Mbeya Experiment protocol for endline lab-in-the-field experiment in Masaka/Mubende and Mbeya