Abstract

The Integrated Household Survey is one of the primary instruments implemented by the Government of Malawi through the National Statistical Office (NSO) roughly every 5 years to monitor and evaluate the changing conditions of Malawian households. The IHS data have, among other insights, provided benchmark poverty and vulnerability indicators to foster evidence-based policy formulation and monitor the progress of meeting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the goals listed as part of the Malawi Growth and Development Strategy (MGDS) and now the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Geographic coverage

National

Analysis unit

• Households
• Individuals
• Children under 5 years
• Consumption expenditure commodities/items
• Communities
• Agricultural household/ Holder/ Crop

Universe

Members of the following households are not eligible for inclusion in the survey: • All people who live outside the selected EAs, whether in urban or rural areas. • All residents of dwellings other than private dwellings, such as prisons, hospitals and army barracks. • Members of the Malawian armed forces who reside within a military base. (If such individuals reside in private dwellings off the base, however, they should be included among the households eligible for random selection for the survey.) • Non-Malawian diplomats, diplomatic staff, and members of their households. (However, note that non-Malawian residents who are not diplomats or diplomatic staff and are resident in private dwellings are eligible for inclusion in the survey. The survey is not restricted to Malawian citizens alone.) • Non-Malawian tourists and others on vacation in Malawi.

Kind of data

Sample survey data [ssd]

Sampling procedure

The IHS4 sampling frame is based on the listing information and cartography from the 2008 Malawi Population and Housing Census (PHC); includes the three major regions of Malawi, namely North, Center and South; and is stratified into rural and urban strata. The urban strata include the four major urban areas: Lilongwe City, Blantyre City, Mzuzu City, and the Municipality of Zomba. All other areas are considered as rural areas, and each of the 27 districts were considered as a separate sub-stratum as part of the main rural stratum. This is the first round of the survey to include the island district of Likoma in the sampling frame. The sampling frame further excludes the population living in institutions, such as hospitals, prisons and military barracks. Hence, the IHS4 strata are composed of 32 districts in Malawi.

A stratified two-stage sample design was used for the IHS4.

Note: Detailed sample design information is presented in the "Fourth Integrated Household Survey 2016-2017, Basic Information Document" document.

Mode of data collection

Computer Assisted Personal Interview [capi]

Research instrument

HOUSEHOLD QUESTIONNAIRE The Household Questionnaire is a multi-topic survey instrument and is near-identical to the content and organization of the IHS3. It encompasses economic activities, demographics, welfare and other sectoral information of households. It covers a wide range of topics, dealing with the dynamics of poverty (consumption, cash and non-cash income, savings, assets, food security, health and education, vulnerability and social protection). Although the IHS4 household questionnaire covers a wide variety of topics in detail it intentionally excludes in-depth information on topics covered in other surveys that are part of the NSO’s statistical plan (such as maternal and child health issues covered at length in the Malawi Demographic and Health Survey).

AGRICULTURE QUESTIONNAIRE All IHS4 households that are identified as being involved in agricultural or livestock activities were administered the agriculture questionnaire, which is primarily modelled after the IHS3 counterpart. The modules are expanding on the agricultural content of the IHS3, IHS2, AISS, and other regional agricultural surveys, while remaining consistent with the NACAL topical coverage and methodology. The development of the agriculture questionnaire was done with input from the aforementioned stakeholders who provided input on the household questionnaire as well as outside researchers involved in research and policy discussions pertaining to the Malawian agriculture. The agriculture questionnaire allows, among other things, for extensive agricultural productivity analysis through the diligent estimation of land areas, both owned and cultivated, labor and non-labor input use and expenditures, and production figures for main crops, and livestock. Although one of the major foci of the agriculture data collection effort was to produce smallholder production estimates for major crops, it is also possible to disaggregate the data by gender and main geographical regions. The IHS4 cross-sectional households supply information on the last completed rainy season (2014/2015 or 2015/2016) and the last completed dry season (2015 or 2016) depending on the timing of their interview.

FISHERIES QUESTIONNAIRE The design of the IHS4 fishery questionnaire is identical to the questionnaire designed for IHS3. The IHS3 fisheries questionnaire was informed by the design and piloting of a fishery questionnaire by the World Fish Center (WFC), which was supported by the LSMS-ISA project for the purpose of assembling a fishery questionnaire that could be integrated into multi-topic household-surveys. The WFC piloted the draft instrument in November 2009 in the Lower Shire region, and the NSO team considered the revised draft in designing the IHS4 fishery questionnaire.

COMMUNITY QUESTIONNAIRE The content of the IHS4 Community Questionnaire follows the content of the IHS3 & IHPS Community Questionnaires. A “community” is defined as the village or urban location surrounding the enumeration area selected for inclusion in the sample and which most residents recognize as being their community. The IHS4 community questionnaire was administered to each community associated with the 780 cross-sectional EAs. Identical to the IHS3 approach, to a group of several knowledgeable residents such as the village headman, the headmaster of the local school, the agricultural field assistant, religious leaders, local merchants, health workers and long-term knowledgeable residents. The instrument gathers information on a range of community characteristics, including religious and ethnic background, physical infrastructure, access to public services, economic activities, communal resource management, organization and governance, investment projects, and local retail price information for essential goods and services.

Cleaning operations

DATA ENTRY PLATFORM To ensure data quality and timely availability of data, the IHS4 was implemented using the World Bank’s Survey Solutions CAPI software. To carry out IHS4, 1 laptop computer and a wireless internet router were assigned to each team supervisor, and each enumerator had an 8–inch GPS-enabled Samsung Galaxy Tab S2 tablet computer. The use of Survey Solutions allowed for the real-time availability of data as the completed data was completed, approved by the Supervisor and synced to the Headquarters server as frequently as possible. While administering the first module of the questionnaire the enumerator(s) also used their tablets to record the GPS coordinates of the dwelling units. In Survey Solutions, Headquarters can then see the location of the dwellings plotted on a map of Malawi to better enable supervision from afar – checking both the number of interviews performed and the fact that the sample households lie within EA boundaries. Geo-referenced household locations from that tablet complemented the GPS measurements taken by the Garmin eTrex 30 handheld devices and these were linked with publically available geospatial databases to enable the inclusion of a number of geospatial variables - extensive measures of distance (i.e. distance to the nearest market), climatology, soil and terrain, and other environmental factors - in the analysis.

DATA MANAGEMENT The IHS4 Survey Solutions CAPI based data entry application was designed to stream-line the data collection process from the field. IHS4 Interviews were collected in “sample” mode (assignments generated from headquarters) as opposed to “census” mode (new interviews created by interviewers from a template) for the NSO to have more control over the sample.

The range and consistency checks built into the application was informed by the LSMS-ISA experience in IHS3 and IHPS. Prior programming of the data entry application allowed for a wide variety of range and consistency checks to be conducted and reported and potential issues investigated and corrected before closing the assigned enumeration area. Headquarters (NSO management) assigned work to supervisors based on their regions of coverage. Supervisors then made assignments to the enumerators linked to their Supervisor account. The work assignments and syncing of completed interviews took place through a Wi-Fi connection to the IHS4 server. Because the data was available in real time it was monitored closely throughout the entire data collection period and upon receipt of the data at headquarters, data was exported to STATA for other consistency checks, data cleaning, and analysis.

DATA CLEANING The data cleaning process was done in several stages over the course of field work and through preliminary analysis. The first stage of data cleaning was conducted in the field by the field based field teams utilizing errors generated with the Survey Solutions application. For questions that