# **3.3 The Living Standards Measurement Study (LSMS) survey program as a candidate for studying climate migration**

<mark>The Living Standards Measurement Study (LSMS) is the most widely known household survey program of the World Bank and has been at the forefront of methodological research on data collection in low- and middle-income countries since its start in the early 1980s. LSMS surveys have several distinct strengths that make them a solid source of data for studying the effects of climate change at the micro level. Their multi-purpose, multi-topic nature and their nationally representative samples allow tracing the impacts of climate change on a wide range of outcomes including poverty, mobility, agriculture, and health, and assessing these impacts for different groups of households and individuals, especially the poor and most vulnerable ones. These surveys regularly collect data on ownership of various asset types; financial inclusion; employment; access, usage, and management of natural resources, energy, and water access; consumption; health; and anthropometrics. This rich contextual information is essential for accurately understanding the main transmission channels through which climate migration impacts materialize and how they may disproportionately affect different population groups.</mark> <mark>LSMS leads the production of detailed plot-level data on agricultural productivity, inputs, and production practices including those that are relevant for climate change adaptation and mitigation.</mark><sup>25</sup> <mark>This is critical information in the context of climate change, given that most of the global poor are engaged in agriculture and that this sector is highly vulnerable to climatic variability – especially in low-income countries where smallholder farmers rely on rainfall as the primary source of irrigation. In these settings, agriculture is possibly the leading channel to explain climate migration and, as such, detailed agricultural data collected at the household level are key information for studying this nexus. The community survey complementing the household level data collection in the LSMS survey system is also an important source of information for better understanding changes and events affecting entire communities, such as climate shocks, environmental shifts, and migration inflows and outflows.</mark> <mark>The longitudinal nature of many LSMS surveys is clearly a fundamental feature for the study of climateand migration-related issues as it allows individuals, households, and communities to be tracked across time and space. In recent years, LSMS has been advancing the methodological frontier in the collection of quality</mark> intra-household, self-reported, and <mark>individually-disaggregated data in low- and middle-income countries.</mark><sup>26</sup> <mark>This is particularly relevant from a climate migration perspective as it allows for capturing</mark>

> 25 This is done through the <mark>LSMS Integrated Survey on Agriculture (LSMS-ISA) project in collaboration with national statistical offices of client countries. F</mark> or more information about the LSMS-ISA project, see: <u>https://www.worldbank.org/en/programs/lsms/initiatives/lsms-ISA.</u>

> 26 This is part of the Living Standards Measurement Study – Plus (LSMS+) program, established in 2016. For more information about the LSMS+ program see https://www.worldbank.org/en/programs/lsms/initiatives/lsms-plus.

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