TRACING PROTOCOLS FOR CASH TRANSFER BENEFICIARY HOUSEHOLDS FOR THE NATIONAL LIVING STANDARD SURVEY

1. Background

The Federal Government of Nigeria has prioritized the implementation of social protection interventions as an instrument for the reduction of poverty and socio-economic vulnerabilities in the population.  One major intervention towards achieving this is the establishment of the National Social Safety Nets Projects (NASSP), a flagship initiative under the Social Investment Programme. NASSP is currently being implemented in partnership with the World Bank through a counterpart funding of $500 million loan to the Federal Government. The aim of the project is to support the Government by expanding access for poor households to social safety nets, while also developing systems at the federal level for use by other safety net and public programs.

One of the objectives of NASSP to strengthen and consolidate the building blocks of a safety net system at the national and state level that can deliver targeted support to poor households (HHs) across Nigeria. Under this objective and to ensure sufficient data availability for safety nets targeting and monitoring, NASSP is supporting the National Living Standard Survey (NLSS) – a household survey representative at the national and state levels used by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) to monitor poverty in Nigeria.

2. Sample Design

A deliberate design of the NLSS, is to oversample HHs to capture existing beneficiaries of the NASSP cash transfer (CCT) and allow it to be used as a baseline for future evaluation. The NLSS oversample will be derived in 2 stages: the Wards will serve as the Primary Sampling Unit (PSU) and households as Secondary/Ultimate Sampling Unit.  With guidance from the NASSP Coordinating Office (NASSCO), the oversample will be selected from the National Beneficiaries Register of Poor and Vulnerable Households (PVHHs) across eighteen states.

3. Cash Transfer Facilitators (CTFs)

The State Cash Transfer Unit has local staff who will facilitate the contact of beneficiaries to be interviewed; they are referred to as the Cash Transfer Facilitators (CTFs). The CTFs are appointed for each political ward from a pool of LGA staff to support the roll-out of the CT in communities within the LGA.

The CTFs should be contacted through the State Cash Transfer Unit (SCTU) to trace the HHs. A list of CTFs for selected states by communities and their contact information is provided in Appendix I.

4. Protocols for Tracing CCT Households

The data available in the NSR for those selected households should include information on the name of heads of HHs, phone numbers of heads of HHs or HH members, GPS location of HHs, and the physical addresses of the HHs including community, political ward, Local Government Area, and State. With these details, the survey enumerators should be able to locate the selected HHs in the selected Wards. However, given that even with the above information it may be difficult to locate the HHs, and/or because there are cases where HHs location and identification information are inaccurate or unavailable, the survey team should follow the protocols below:

1. Tracing of households will be a joint effort between NBS and NCTO staff and will require close coordination between the two teams.
2. NBS will receive the contact information of the State Cash Transfer Unit (SCTU).

• NBS interviewers will contact the SCTU and will provide the list of households that should be interviewed (including replacements). The SCTU will then contact the CTFs based on the selected wards.

1. Prior to the interview, the CTF should contact the selected households making sure they are informed and cooperate.
2. NBS interviewers and the CTF will go together to the community and introduce themselves to the household. This will avoid that households are wary about an interviewer just showing up and asking all these questions without some official notice from the SCTU.
3. The interview will be conducted ONLY by NBS interviewers. Due to privacy rules, it is mandatory that the CTF personnel leave the dwelling while the interview is being conducted. NBS interviewers will not start the interview until they are alone with the respondent and it is ensured that confidentiality has been guaranteed.

• NASSCO will communicate this protocol to all the staff involved in the NLSS, so that there is clarity regarding the confidentiality of the interview and privacy rules are followed.

5. Replacement of households

If after 3 unsuccessful attempts, the interviewer is not available to find the household and/or if the household refuses to participate on the survey, the interviewer will inform the supervisor of the issue. After the supervisor has been briefed by the interviewer and determines that the household is unavailable and a replacement is warranted, the supervisor will request a replacement household be made available for the interviewer. The replacement household will be randomly selected from the pool of available replacements.

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