Baseline Survey Report on Socio-economic Households Characterisation at Selected Watershed Catchments in Afghanistan

Abstract

To record the benchmarks for the identified indicators of the ACIAR funded “Integrated Catchment Management and Capacity Building for improving Livelihoods in Afghanistan” project, to improve livelihoods of men, women and youth farmers in the catchment areas of the watershed project – baseline survey was carried out in Baghlan, Bamyan, Mazar, Nangarhar and Takhar provinces covering five districts and 23 villages that were accessible for data collection. The main objective of the survey was to establish benchmark indicators for the project activities against which changes will be measured throughout the progress being made during the course of project implementation. This survey provided basic information in the light of which the existing and potential constraints in the diffusion and adoption of improved technologies and practices will be identified and efforts will be made, through project interventions, to minimize these constraints. Purposive and multi-stage random sampling technique was adopted for the selection of a total of 200 farmer households from 23 villages distributed in the catchments of selected watersheds located in five districts of the five target provinces. A total of nine identified enumerators from ICARDA-Afghanistan National and University Staff were trained on Household Baseline Survey questionnaire in September 2013 and again in October 2014 with revised questionnaire and sampling framework. Socio-economist of the project with the cooperation of ICARDA Provincial coordinators monitored the enumerators to ensure accuracy of the interviews in the field. The data was classified in tables with frequency distribution, percentage, graphs and charts for ease of understanding. Statistical tools like descriptive statistics (mean, percentage), chi-square test, etc. were used for analysing the data. Baseline survey of the selected watersheds in target provinces enabled to understand the existing knowledge level of households in using soil and water conservation practices integrated with production systems, livelihoods and other factors influencing adoption of dryland technologies. The entry points identified from the baseline data analysis enables to plan project interventions suiting to the target locations