Can coaching help families adapt to displacement following a natural disaster? Evidence from a flood adaption program in Ghana.

Our proposed intervention offers personalized coaching focusing on i) counseling to help flood victims cope with trauma, stress, and emotional challenges resulting from the disaster, ii) practical guidance on how to manage immediate needs such as emergency shelter, food, clean water, and medical care as well as longer-term needs including finding employment opportunities and securing housing, and iii) information on how to navigate government assistance programs. Coaches are trained staff of NADMO, Ghana’s official disaster management organization.
We propose to conduct a full study on NADMO’s coaching program, rather than first conduct a pilot, for three reasons. First, the program is heavily based on similar programs offered outside of displacement settings where it has demonstrated substantial benefits for education, sports, food security, mental health, and asset accumulation (e.g., Neuner et al., 2004; Yang et al., 2013; Bettinger & Baker, 2014; Panter-Brick et al., 2017; Lehan et al., 2018; Vanacore & Dahan, 2019; Innovations for Poverty Action, 2022; Fu & Sanders, 2023; Dávila et al., 2023). We expect the benefits of personalized coaching to be especially high in displacement contexts given that many of the tools inherent in coaching—such as providing positive support and giving tangible instructions to individuals—should be particularly useful for individuals coping with the distress of displacement, who may find themselves in unfamiliar environments, and whose existing support structures may have been severed by displacement. Second, the program will be designed and implemented by an experienced disaster management organization, NADMO, whose expertise in running humanitarian programs for IDPs, we believe, offers many of the same benefits as a pilot study. Third, the recent displacement of flood victims in late 2023 increases the value of launching quickly, as we expect the resources we provide to be especially helpful early in the displacement period.

2025-08-05

2025-08-15

We expect the personalized coaching program to improve livelihoods for IDPs by substituting for the support and information that would typically be provided by social networks, which displacement may disrupt (Baseler and Hennig, 2024). The value of new information is likely to be especially high given that many IDPs are forced into settings where they are unfamiliar with the economic, cultural, and institutional background. The value of mental health support provided through coaching is likely to be especially high given the recent distress IDPs experienced during the disaster and subsequent displacement. Finally, most IDPs have experienced substantial losses to savings and physical assets, implying that information about new economic opportunities, or social assistance programs that help them access those opportunities, is likely to be especially valuable.
Given these theories, our study will focus on the following outcomes: awareness and use of social assistance programs, knowledge of the region to which they have been displaced (such as basic information about the host community and nearby economic opportunities), employment status, income, consumption, and assets, mental health, and subjective well-being. We believe these outcomes are most directly relevant to DLI’s Resilience research area, with possible relevancy to Wage Employment and Entrepreneurship.

: The proposed project will be conducted in three phases. The first phase will involve a qualitative study to inform the design of survey questions and the specific informational content of the intervention. The second phase is an impact evaluation involving a listing survey (to establish the evaluation sample), a baseline survey, and an endline survey approximately six months after launching the interventions. The third phase involves dissemination to policymakers inside and outside of Ghana.
In the first phase, we will use an interview guide to collect data from key experts including local authorities, officials from the National Disaster Management Organization (NADMO), the Ministry of Food and Agriculture, the Lands Commission, the Ghana Education Services, victims of displacements, and climate change experts. These initial interviews will inform the design of our intervention and survey tools, which we will then pilot with approximately 30 beneficiaries.
The second phase will list all eligible households in each village selected in our sample, from which we will draw a household evaluation sample. The target sites for these households are NADMO beneficiary areas affected by displacement through floods. An evaluation sample of 2,000 displaced households (about 12 per village) will be selected randomly, stratifying on gender of the household head, replacing any households that decline to participate in the program. We will then use household interviews to collect pre-intervention (baseline) data from the full evaluation sample. We will then randomize treatment at the village level, stratifying on two summary indices of baseline economic well-being and mental health. About six months later, we will conduct an endline survey in the full evaluation sample. We anticipate 10% attrition given the timeline (six to eight months between baseline and follow-up) and will collect multiple forms of contact data at baseline to facilitate recontact for those who relocate between our baseline and endline surveys. After the launch of interventions but before endline data collection, we will conduct qualitative data collection through focus groups, where an interview guide will be employed to elicit information from 2–5 sites (10–20 respondents). We will analyze these interviews using content analysis to better understand the nature of impacts of the coaching program and to inform the design of our endline survey tool.
The third phase will involve dissemination of the study findings through various workshops and seminars organize to present the research findings to policymakers, government agencies including NADMO, international organizations, and other stakeholders. We will also design strategies for engaging local communities and displaced families in policy discussions and program implementation, ensuring that their voices and needs are considered. The findings will also be presented in development conferences to explore opportunities for collaboration with government agencies, NGOs, and international organizations. The AEA, Global Development Network (GDN), and International Association of Agricultural Economists (IAAE) conferences will be particularly targeted for dissemination.

Our sample will consist of 30 villages (15 villages per arm) with about 12 households per village, yielding a total evaluation sample of 330 displaced households (165 heads per arm). We assume a 10% attrition rate, giving an endline sample of 10.5 households per cluster. At 80% power, 5% size, and an intra-cluster correlation coefficient of 0.05, we are powered to detect changes of 0.16 standard deviations in our outcomes of interest. This computation used the following Stata command and does not account for the power benefits of baseline controls. We believe these effects are plausible given similar impacts of previous coaching studies (e.g., Puffer et al., 2017).

Randomization will occur at the village level.

Yes

30 villages

330 respondents

165 treated and 165 control

power twomeans 0, k1(86) k2(86) m1(10.5) m2(10.5) power(0.8) alpha(0.05) sd(1) rho(0.05)