Household Economy Assessment Baseline Training Report Fish Cultivation Livelihood Zone November 2012 Funded by PARTICIPANTS Participants: Bilkis Ara (Save the Children), Apubar Kumar Datta (CARE), Muhammad Shahadat Hossain (Save the Children), Muhammad Moniruzzaman (Islamic Relief), Sheikh Mostafizur Rhaman (Shushilan), Jamal Uddin (Save the Children) Facilitation and Report Writing: Alexandra King (Food Economy Group) 1 TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction ………………………………………………………………………………… 3 Background and objectives Methods and steps in baseline training and fieldwork Description of study area ………………………………………………………………… 7 Markets Seasonality Timeline and reference year Household Economy Findings for 2011-12 Reference Year …………………… 10 Wealth breakdown Sources of food Sources of cash income Expenditure pattern Hazards Response strategies Key parameters for monitoring Programme implications How Can the Baselines Be Used: Running Scenarios ………………………….. 18 2 Introduction Background and Objectives Save the Children has been funded by ECHO as part of the ‘Filling the Gap: Scaling up the Use of Essential Tools to Link Food Security and Nutrition’ grant to offer training in the Household Economy Approach (HEA) to increase global capacity in the tool. One set of trainings for this grant was conducted in Khulna, Bangladesh. The objectives of the Khulna training were: To produce robust evidence using HEA in one livelihood zone in Khulna, Bangladesh. To build the capacity of ECHO stakeholders to carry out HEA assessments and use the analysis to inform programmatic and policy interventions. Specifically, participants should: o Learn the overall framework, concepts, methodology, outputs and utilization of HEA; o Be able to gather thorough and quality information during interviews in the field; o Use, consolidate and analyse raw HEA data. To provide training and spreadsheets for outcome analysis to measure the impact of future shocks. Specifically, participants should: o Gain an in-depth understanding of the logic and structure of the single zone and Livelihoods Impact Analysis Spreadsheets (LIAS) that are used to analyse data; o Learn to produce seasonal forecasts and scenarios that model the impact of a hazard, as well as project interventions that can mitigate the impact of the hazard. To provide essential information for a subsequent Cost of Diet analysis in Khulna. Methods and steps in baseline training and fieldwork The Household Economy Approach (HEA) was used for collecting and analysing field- based information on the wealth breakdown and for profiling livelihood strategies, which include sources of food and cash income, expenditure patterns, and household coping strategies. HEA looks at households’ access to basic food and non-food items, through production, purchase and other mechanisms. The household is taken as the unit of reference because it is the chief unit through which populations operate for production, sharing of income, and consumption. The framework proposes that if we can first understand how households obtain their food and non-food needs, and likewise how they obtain cash with which to buy these things, then we have a basic description of how people survive – how their household economy ‘works’. This tells us whether a given population is economically insecure and currently in need of assistance. It also acts as the baseline information against which we can view a new threat to food and non-food access, be it from crop failure, flooding or market 3 disruptions. Baseline information enables us to judge a population’s vulnerability to different shocks or threats to its livelihood. For more information on possible uses of the livelihood baselines, key concepts related to livelihoods and HEA, and the HEA methodology, readers are referred to The Household Economy Approach: A Guide for Programme Planners and Policy-Makers.1 The team undertook the following steps during this study: Preliminary work: Save the Children staff undertook a livelihood zoning exercise for Khulna Division before the start of this training assessment. This was carried out using the local knowledge of SCI project field staff, CODEC (partner) staff, and government officials from the fisheries, agriculture, land and livestock departments at district and sub-district (upazila) levels. A map was produced for each district (Khulna, Bagerhat and Satkhira) before a merged map for Khulna Division, below, was produced. There are three livelihood zones: A) Natural Sources Livelihood Zone (mainly covering the Sundarbans Mangrove Forest), B) Fish Cultivation Livelihood Zone (where shrimp and fish cultivation are the key economic activity), and C) Agriculture Livelihood Zone. It is possible that the Agriculture Livelihood Zone should be sub-divided into smaller zones, but this was not followed up as part of this exercise. The Fish Cultivation Livelihood Zone was chosen for the HEA training and assessment. 1 The guide, The Household Economy Approach: A Guide for Programme Planners and Policy-Makers, is available at http://www.feg-consulting.com/resource/the-household-economy-approach-a-guide-for- program-planners-and-policy-makers and at http://www.savethechildren.org.uk/resources/online- library/household-economy-approach-guide-programme-planners-and-policy-makers. 4 Training. A training workshop was held from 4-8 November 2012, with 6 participants from four organisations (SCI, Shushilan, CARE, Islamic Relief). The topics covered included: HEA framework overview, livelihood zoning, reference year, wealth groups, livelihood strategies (food, income, expenditure), kilocalorie calculations, coping strategies, seasonality, ensuring high quality field information, and reviewing and practicing community leader and household focus group interviews. Fieldwork timing. The fieldwork outlined in the following paragraphs was carried out from 10-20 November 2012. Interviews with community leaders. The team conducted semi-structured interviews in seven villages2 with groups of leaders, elders and community members. The purpose was to gather information on production, prices, the historical timeline and seasonal calendar and to establish the wealth breakdown. Interviews with household representatives. Semi-structured interviews to quantify food and income sources and expenditure patterns at household level were conducted with 27 focus groups at different income levels (very poor, poor, middle, and better off) in the seven villages. An average of 4-5 people participated in each interview and they were engaged in a wide variety of economic activities. The household economy information was cross-checked within and across interviews. Information was gathered for the most recent one-year period (mid-November 2011 – mid-November 2012). Analysis of information, compilation of the baseline picture, and development of scenarios. The baseline analysis was conducted during 21-22 November and is available in a baseline storage spreadsheet. A livelihood impact analysis spreadsheet (LIAS) has also been prepared to facilitate scenario analysis. A few limitations of the assessment should be noted: HEA baseline assessments usually cover a good geographical spread of villages within a livelihood zone. In this assessment, for logistical reasons, villages were selected from just one upazila in one district (Rampal Upazila in Bagerhat District). This makes it difficult to comment on the accuracy of the livelihood zoning and on the representativeness of the findings outlined here for the other parts of the livelihood zone. Rampal Upazila is among the upazilas with better road and market access within the Fish Cultivation Livelihood Zone. The precise implications of this on household food and income sources and expenditure patterns are not known. In addition, some parts of the Fish Cultivation Livelihood Zone have poor access to drinking water, with households having to pay for the transport of water. This was 2 The original plan was to conduct interviews in eight villages, but one village had to be dropped due to a hartal in Khulna on 15 November 2012. 5 not the case in Rampal Upazila, where households have good access to free tube well water. The lower end of the better off wealth group was interviewed, partly because community leaders said it would be difficult to call the ‘rich’ for interviews and partly because HEA is generally less interested in the extremes of the wealth spectrum (i.e. the top or bottom 5%). The limitation that this presents to the analysis is that, while the better off that we interviewed do employ some labour, the top half of the better off must be the main employers at village level. This means that it has not been possible to cross check the local labour earnings of very poor and poor households against that spent by rich households. In some cases we did not separate out sources of income or expenditure items that are linked to safety nets. For example, we asked people how much rice they were purchasing, whether this varied over the year, and the average price at which it was purchased. We did not ask details about where it was purchased and from whom. Thus we cannot comment on which times of the year, if any, very poor or poor households may have been purchasing government-subsidised rice (on the open market system or OMS). Similarly, when covering income earned from labour, we focused on whether the work was local or migrant labour, the number of days worked per week or month, and the income earned per day. We did not specifically ask whether the work was