The randomization was undertaken in two steps. First, among all eligible villages in the 6 targeted communes, a public lottery randomly selected treatment and control clusters. In total, 152 clusters (244 villages) were drawn, including 100 treatment clusters (159 villages) and 52 control clusters (85 villages). After cash transfers started, a second public lottery was undertaken to assign treatment villages to receive either the cash transfers only (CT, 50 clusters, 84 villages), or the cash transfers plus the behavioral change component (CT + BCC, 50 clusters, 75 villages).<sup>13</sup>

# 3.2 <u>Sampling, Data and Timeline</u>

After the first public lottery, a listing of households was undertaken in all villages drawn into the sample. The sample for the baseline survey was drawn from the listing by taking a random sample of 30 eligible households in each cluster.<sup>14</sup> A baseline survey was then collected between April and June 2012 among sample households. The baseline sample included 4,330 households and detailed information on 6,132 children aged 6-59 months.

The baseline survey included a household module and a module for children aged 6 to 59 months. The household survey instrument built on the 2011 Niger LSMS-ISA national household survey questionnaire. The survey for children aged 6-59 months built on the Niger DHS/MICS questionnaire. It contained modules on nutrition and food security, parenting practices, as well as anthropometric measures. The child instrument also included a cognitive test adapted by Zeitlin and Barry (2008) to measure cognitive development among young children in West Africa. The test is an adapted version of the Bayley<sup>TM</sup> cognitive scale, discussed further in Section 4.4 below.<sup>15</sup>

> 13 Two nomadic clusters (one control and one treatment cluster, including 6 villages in total) were originally drawn into the evaluation sample but had to be dropped from the baseline survey due to communities being entirely inaccessible. One of the two clusters could be added back into the sample at follow-up as part of the additional booster sample (see discussion in Section 3.2).

> 14 Based on this household listing, screening criteria were applied to exclude ineligible households, defined by the program as those with self-reported income higher than a pre-set threshold. Approximately 20% of households were deemed ineligible based on this criterion. (Premand and Schnitzer (forthcoming) show that the use of exclusion criteria does not contribute to targeting inefficiency in a later phase of the program). The sample is representative of households eligible for the program at the commune level. Therefore, the evaluation sample is representative of eligible households in communes eligible to the cash transfer program. Note that after clusters were drawn into the impact evaluation sample, random sampling was used to draw households. When the household sample was drawn, 13 small villages among the full sample of clusters had no observation drawn into the sample: (i) 4 villages in the control group; (ii) 6 villages in the cash transfers group and (iii) 3 villages in the cash transfers and parenting training.  A few small clusters of less than 30 households remained, particularly among nomadic villages.

> 15 In practice, household and child survey teams followed each other in the field. Household survey teams were responsible for referring children eligible for the child survey to the child survey teams. To ensure a smooth transition between the two surveys, the household survey teams pre-filled information on household location and children’s identification in the child questionnaire, before passing them to the child survey team. Child survey teams were then responsible to verify children’s age and collect data

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