Innovative IFAD tool to help lighten the load for poverty assessment

Assessing the results and impact of development efforts can often seem like a herculean task. How can poverty alleviation efforts be measured and monitored adequately? When can a program be considered a success or a failure? What are the crucial indicators to chart the correct course? Finding answers to these types of questions is highly relevant during a period in which the international community is challenging itself to design a follow-up framework to the Millennium Development Goals in the post-2015 agenda. But it also represents a day-to-day challenge for development practitioners. To help tackle the challenge — and find answers to key questions — the International Fund for Agricultural Development will on Thursday unveil a new tool that is set to revolutionize the way rural development and rural poverty is measured and pave the way for a number of impacts on development organizations' programming cycles. Days before the official launch at IFAD's Rome headquarters, Devex sat down with the architects of the Multidimensional Poverty Assessment Tool to learn how it could affect programs on the ground — and how it could help organizations overcome some of their most pressing monitoring challenges. Monitoring impact and efficiency At first glance, the way MPAT works seems straightforward: Aggregating data gathered through household surveys, which are then processed to paint a detailed picture of the situation in one or more towns and villages to be used for evaluations and program adjustments. So where's the innovation? MPAT has been created for use not only by big donor agencies, but also by small nongovernmental organizations that lack the resources to develop their own monitoring systems. “It’s a tool to inform governments where they should put their money in programs and projects, and for people in the countries to see how the money is spent," according to Thomas Rath, IFAD's country program manager. "It's an inexpensive tool for governments to see how their policies have been translated into actions,” the official told Devex. The tool was first conceived in 2008 and in the intervening period 6 different versions has been piloted in countries including India, China, Mozambique and Bangladesh. A beta-version of the tool has been already implemented by a number of NGOs, government bodies and other organizations. 3 key problems, 3 key solutions There are 3 key difficulties encountered by organizations that the tool helps address: 1. Poverty is multidimensional and context-specific: Income alone is not a good indicator. The development of rural areas and effective poverty reduction efforts require a combination of complementary activities. It is this complexity that MPAT aims to help simplify. “Most tools actually look only at a very specific [set of indicators], in most cases only at food security or income. In other instances, they leave it out completely and look only at social dimensions, such as gender, living conditions and cultural aspects. People shy away from capturing everything … because it’s too complex, too expensive and too cumbersome to survey that,” Rath explained. But according to Alasdair Cohen, MPAT team leader, people working in the development sector want to gain a deeper understanding of the various interlinked dimensions of poverty. MPAT is based on surveys conducted at household level. The questionnaires are designed as semi-structured interviews, which are conversations of about 35 minutes. “A problem in development is that so much data is collected through the surveys, but very little is done with it. What we are doing is helping users really use the data in a powerful way,” he said. The information gathered is entered into Excel spreadsheets that are then aggregated according to 10 indicators, which reflect the different dimensions of rural poverty — from food and nutrition security to domestic water supply, from housing, clothing and energy to non-farm assets, gender and social equality. An indicator’s value is determined by a variety of subcomponents, which can be adapted according to the context. For example, the levels for food and nutrition security are evaluated by analyzing factors such as the household's consumption habits, stability of access to food, the nutritional quality of this food, and available assets such as land tenure and the quality of crop and livestock resources, among others. “There’s no definitive answer of what's the best indicator to understand poverty,” Cohen said. Instead, he said, the 10 MPAT indicators are the results of the “collective wisdom” of a group including development practitioners, academics, United Nations experts, and other stakeholders coming from different parts of the world. 2. Many current tools are based on existing national data and are not designed for use on the ground. “[MPAT] is for operations and for use on the ground,” Rath said. MPAT can be used for project planning and design, as well as for ascertaining priorities or for monitoring and evaluation. This, he said, is because MPAT is not an index built on existing national data, such as those collected by the United Nations Development Program or others, but is instead populated by first-hand information. Indeed, MPAT does not measure poverty through a single index, but rather through a number of indicators shown on a single dashboard. “We made the decision not to simplify [findings] in one number,” Cohen said. According to both Cohen and Rath, this can help decision makers better understand the strengths and weaknesses of their programs and make the required adjustments. For example, more or less emphasis can be given to agricultural interventions or to infrastructure and the tool can be regularly and routinely used to monitor progress and track changes. But why should an organization be interested in gathering and monitoring such large amounts of data? The question is not a new one for MPAT team. Cohen argued that it is important to recognize the symbiotic nature of development efforts and the layers of interconnectivity between sectors: “Even if you are only interested and focusing on 1 or 2 sectors, there is an interplay. All of these sectors are connected in different ways … It’s arguably irresponsible not to take into consideration the bigger picture in which you work,” he said. 3. Measuring poverty is complex and costly. Many large organizations are able to mobilize resources to implement their own monitoring systems. But such systems come at a cost that is often prohibitive for smaller actors. Cohen explained that helping to reduce costs was one of the key motivations behind the development of MPAT. "We [wanted] this tool to be truly open source, truly free. We don’t want it be mostly free, but then you need to spend $10,000 on a consultant to do your training. Everything you need to be able to use it is in [the guide] book we provide," he said. As well as being free at the point of access, another key aim of the tool was to make it easy to use. For example, Rath explained that by using Excel the tool is both more accessible and familiar than those employing dedicated programs that can crash if they are not accompanied by the use of registered software. The NGO Nuru International has recently concluded MPAT tests in Kenya, where they were “looking to develop their own metric for poverty assessment and they realized how hard it is, how expensive it, how much research, and how much time it involves,” Cohen said. IFAD estimates a cost of about $23,000 for collecting and processing 900 interviews. That’s “pretty cheap,” according to Cohen, considering that this includes implementation, training, paying personnel to conduct interviews and manage data entry, transportation and other expenses such as printing costs. Only time will tell whether take-up rates for the new tool meet expectations. But if the task faced by organizations when assessing results and impact can be characterized as herculean, MPAT’s architects will be hopeful that this tool can help lighten the load. Read more development aid news online, and subscribe to The Development Newswire to receive top international development headlines from the world’s leading donors, news sources and opinion leaders — emailed to you FREE every business day. See more: IFAD's new type of consultant: Local, committed specialist How equity funds can boost PPPs for agriculture development How to build a 'failure-friendly’ organization