Primary Outcomes (explanation)
The Food Consumption Score (FCS, collected during all rounds) is comprised of the number of days in the past week when the household consumed major food categories (e.g., maize, tubers, eggs, vegetables, etc). The final score is the sum of these counts.
The Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES, collected during all rounds) is based on a module that asks respondents eight questions capturing a range of food insecurity severity, with yes/no responses over the past 30 days (e.g., "In the past 30 days, was there a time when you or others in your household worried about not having enough food to eat because of a lack of money or other resources?"). The index is then the sum of these values across the eight questions.
Consumption expenditure (not collected during round 1). For discrete items under major consumption categories (food, clothes, hygiene, transport, etc.), we ask the total amount the household has spent on each item over the past week, month, or year depending on the item. We then aggregate these amounts together for the household's total consumption.
The Livelihood Coping Strategies Index (lCSI, not collected during round 1) is based on a module containing 10 questions about a pre-selected set of coping strategies. These strategies were selected to include 4 stress strategies, 3 crisis strategies, and 3 emergency strategies. The classification of these strategies is done according to WFP general guidelines.
The Reduced Coping Strategies Index (rCSI, collected during all rounds) is an indicator used to proxy hardship by measuring the frequency and severity of households' food consumption behaviors when faced with food shortages. According to WFP guidelines, we rely on the five consumption-based strategies that are mandatory to construct the rCSI.
Psychosocial wellbeing
PHQ4 (collected during all rounds) entails 4 standard questions to gauge signs of anxiety and/or depression. Answer options are on a Likert scale with higher values indicating anxiety or depression. The answers are added, and the total score is used to determine whether a person shows signs of either anxiety or depression.
The Cantril Self-Anchoring Striving Scale (not collected during round 1) instructs households to imagine a ladder with steps numbered from 0 (bottom) to 10 (top). The top of the ladder represents the best possible life for the respondent, while the bottom of the ladder represents the worst possible life for them. Respondents are asked to think about where on the ladder they feel they are now. Then, we also ask respondents where they feel they were 2 years ago and where they think they will be in 2 years from now.
Subjective resilience (SERS, not collected during round 1). This index is an equally weighted average of each of the resilience capacity questions standardized to range between 0 (not at all resilient) and 1 (fully resilient) (Jones and d'Errico, 2019).
Agriculture information (not collected during round 1). We collect information on farm assets (ownership, stock, and value) and investments in agricultural activities, farming, livestock, or fishing. Then, we collect information on yields and profits from either activity: crop farming, livestock rearing, or fishing. For livestock, we will compute the Tropical Livestock Unit (TLU) while also collecting information on the numbers of each type of livestock, consumption, and sale of livestock.
Household assets (not collected during round 1). Besides farm assets, we also collect information on the ownership of basic household assets such as tables, chairs, beds, mattresses, radios, TVs, bikes, bicycles, cell phones, and mosquito nets. Then, we inquire about the stock and value of all the items owned by the household. We will collect this information across several rounds, and we will ask households to confirm the previously entered stock of assets.
Risk and time preferences (not collected during round 1). To gauge risk preferences, we will use a hypothetical scenario and ask respondents to choose between a given amount of money that they could receive immediately or the chance of getting an even higher amount of money if the flip of a coin is favorable. At the same time, if the flip of the coin is not favorable, then they would receive nothing. We vary the gap between the certain (immediate receipt) and uncertain (reliant on a coin flip) amounts of money to gauge how risk-averse a person is. Then, to gauge time preferences, we are using yet another hypothetical scenario. This time, we ask respondents to pick between a given amount of money that they could receive immediately or wait till the next month and get a higher amount. Similarly, we vary the gap between today's and next month's amount of money to hypothetically gauge how impatient a person is in regard to receiving an amount of money. That is, how much of a payment a person would require to wait and receive money at a later time.
Intra-household gender dynamics (not collected during round 1)
We ask the female respondent questions related to her agency, voicing women's opinions as well as the existing gender norms in the community.
Investment and saving behaviors, and spending patterns (not collected during round 1).
We ask about the household's allocation of a hypothetical transfer of 1,200 cedis (approx. 100 USD) to gauge spending behaviors. We also ask about savings, loans, credit, and the transfers households receive or give. Then, we compute a standardized costly borrowing index to combine information on (a) how much was borrowed in the last three months and (b) the highest interest rate charged per month (Pople et al., 2021).
Other programme-specific indicators (not collected during round 1)
Time spent in wage employment and the associated wage, engagement in business activities, and the resulting profits, as well as the previous day's time allocation to some main types of activities (agriculture, domestic, non-ag, and leisure) by the household head and the opposite-sex main decision-maker.