baseline surveys

Most international social development policy frameworks aim to reduce poverty and bolster prosperity—with prosperity is defined in economic terms (e.g. job creation, enhanced market access) and measured at the national and regional levels. To access international financing, development project must demonstrate how they will contribute to these higher-level policy aims. Baseline surveys are an essential tool in this process.

Baseline surveys gather data about pre-project conditions, enabling practitioners to establish a comprehensive understanding of the socio-economic, cultural, and environmental conditions of a project's area of influence. These data enable projects to set performance benchmarks and to measure change over time.

A key consideration in planning and conducting baseline surveys is to establish key performance indicators that can be used to anticipate and account for project-induced direct, indirect, and cumulative changes.

Project affected communities should also be involved in baseline survey design, as these stakeholders hold pertinent information about social and cultural receptors that may be sensitive to change (e.g.. structures of governance and societal organization, demographic measures of well-being, cultural identity, etc).

Baseline surveys provide quantifiable information for project performance evaluation, measures by unit and category. Commonly -tracked measures for resettlement or economic displacement, for instance, include the size of households, levels of income, standards of living, and estimated value of assets affected by project activities. Other important factors include transaction costs and inflation adjustments.

This repository presents two example baseline surveys, one intended for Indonesia and the other intended for application across Nepal. Peppered throughout are reflections and abstractions.