# **3 Data and Methodology**

# _3.1 Data_

Our primary data come from the 2007/08 National Risk and Vulnerability Assessment (NRVA), conducted by the Afghanistan Central Statistics Organization and the Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development. The frame used for drawing the sample was the 2003-05 national household listing – a listing of every house in the country; the sample was selected following a stratified, multi-stage design.<sup>20</sup> The survey was administered between August 2007 and September 2008 and covered 20,576 households (about 150,000 individuals) in 2,572 communities.<sup>21</sup> A salient feature of the survey is its implicit stratification over time, which ensures that the samples for each quarter reflect the overall composition of the country.<sup>22</sup> This aspect is essential to address the seasonality associated with household wellbeing. The yearlong fieldwork also allowed coverage of insecure/conflict areas. It is extremely difficult to obtain high quality household data in conflict countries. The NRVA was able to achieve this task through a process of informally securing permission from local leaders in insecure areas, as well as a flexible design for field work. In particular, when a primary sampling unit was considered too insecure to interview at the scheduled time, it would not be immediately replaced, but would be re-considered at a later date within the quarter.<sup>23</sup> The NRVA consists of three components: household and community questionnaires and a district market price survey. The household questionnaire includes 20 sections – 6 administered by female interviewers to female household members and 14 administered by male interviewers to the male household head.<sup>24</sup> A key component of the survey is the food

> 20 The population frame was stratified into a total of 46 domains or strata. The 11 provinces with the most populous provincial centers were each stratified into urban and rural areas, producing 22 strata. Each of the remaining 23 provinces were then also treated as separate strata (and are identified as rural areas), and finally the nomadic Kuchi population is treated as a separate stratum. There were 2,441 primary sampling units (PSUs) from urban and rural settled populations and 131 PSUs from Kuchi populations. In the second and final stage households were selected. In our analysis, standard errors are corrected for the stratified, multi-stage design.

> 21 The household response rate was 99.8%, and the primary sampling unit replacement rate was 3%.

> 22 Implicit stratification means that the frame was sorted both spatially and temporally to ensure that (with a systemic interval selection) the selected sample would be seasonally representative. See Kish (1965, p. 235-6) for a discussion of implicit stratification.

> 23 The motivation for this flexibility is that insecure areas were not necessarily insecure throughout the year. Many areas move in and out of periods of security.

> 24 Households were asked about consumption, demography, housing infrastructure and access, maternal and child health, education, income sources, agriculture and livestock, migration and remittances, assets and credit.

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