Research settings and target

Settings – Darenchigre

The project run in the area of West Garo Hills (WGH), one of the districts of Meghalaya states.

Meghalaya is one of State in the North – East region of India. Garos, the tribe that has given the name to the district, are descendants of Tibeto-Burmese (Sinha 2010) and belong to the Bodo family. The Garos settled in different regions of NE of India and Bangladesh. Then, they moved from a different direction into Garo Hills and settled down in small villages. Garos are a clan society and follow a matrilineal society (Sinha 2010). That means that the youngest daughter inherits the house and the land with the obligation to care for parents during oldness. It is customary for the husband to move to the home of his wife after marriage.

Initially, the known clans were Sangma, Marak and Momin. Later clans like Areng and Shira and others arise (Nipuni Mao 2011). Garos are Christians, in majority Catholic.

The Pilot Centre is located at Darenchigre, at Sant’Alphonsa parish (25°56'27.5"N 90°17'25.2"E), administrated by Missionary Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament Society (MCBS). Tikrikilla is the closer important town to Darenchigre, and headquarters of the main government agencies operating in the district. For the infrastructures, the road (SH 2) linking Darenchigre to Tikrikilla and the road connecting Lakhimpur to Guwahati (Assam State), (SH 12), which is the primary communication route in the area, are under reconstruction. The nearest markets are those of Tikrikilla, Lakhimpur (Assam) and the small market of Lambupara.

There are two schools in the village: the state schools and the MCBS’s fathers one:

kindergarten, primary and secondary (under construction).

The population of Darenchigre is predominantly employed in agriculture and, as indicated by local authorities, in conditions of poverty and backwardness higher than the other inhabitants of the district of Tikrikilla.

Garo hills are in a humid subtropical climate, which is warm and humid except in winter, that tend to be foggy. The area is under jhum agriculture (typical slash and burn techniques), except paddy cultivation which is long monoculture. The main staple crop is paddy (planted in July – August and harvested in November – December) in the low flat land. Small plots in the hills are invested in orchards, such as pepper, coffee, betel nut and banana. Livestock is also present as cattle (smallholder zebu), goat, pigs, poultry and pond for fish.

Settings – Kabinda

The Pilot Centre is located at Kabinda, which is the chief town of Lomami province (6°08'20.8"S 24°30'42.9"E). In 2004 it had 126,723 inhabitants. The city rises on a series of hills and is connected to Mbujy Mayi and Rwanda by the National Road 2, which has been in poor condition from several years. Communications are therefore tricky, especially during the rainy season.

The project collaborates with the Diocese of Kabinda, and the Pilot Centre is at the parish of Saint Pierre (6 ° 08'30.3 "S 24 ° 29'35.8" E). The area in which we operate is peri-urban. The population has access to different markets in the city (the closest is in front of the parish of Saint Pierre, but not everiday, while the primary market is less than 1 km in the central part of the town). The population is predominantly Catholic, with small Muslim communities settling in the city.

The region falls within the Tropical Savana Climate and is characterised with four months of the dry season (from mid-May to August) coupled with eight months of the rainy season, sometimes interrupted by a short dry season in January/February. Thus, there are two distinct growing seasons, one from January to mid-May and a second from August to November (USAID 2016b). Daily temperature averages 25 °C and annual rainfall is close to 1500 mm.

Typically, soils consist of a collection of sand on clay sediment (Muyayabantu, Nkongolo, and Kadiata 2013). Hills characterise the area. The most important crops are cassava, corn, groundnuts, plantain, banana, mango, papaya, coffee. Livestock is also present mostly as goat and poultry. Due to the presence of rivers, fish is available.

Description of participants

Target households of the surveys were both beneficiaries and non-beneficiaries of the

“Production of appropriate food: safe, sufficient and sustainable” project. Households were considered a unit of analysis because they are the target of interventions. A household can be defined as one person or a group of people, related or not related, which live in the same house, sharing living space, at least one meals per day, some resources and economies of scales (Shaner, Philipp, and Schemehl 1982; Smeeding and Weinberg 2001). The head of the house is definable as the person responsible for governing a group of people that live in the same dwelling. Since household decisions affect individual food security (production of foodstuff, distribution of food, the general income of the household), this research is focused on rural household both in India and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The source of information (respondent) in the household was the head of the household (or his/her partner).

For the sample of beneficiaries, the households were selected randomly by a member of the local team, who compiled a list based on memory. When a selected household was not available, another one was randomly chosen. For the non-beneficiaries, it was not possible to obtain a complete list of the household that lives in the surrounding area. However, because of the socio-economic contest, the local team was able to target random families who live in the same conditions as the beneficiaries. The non-beneficiaries families were selected according to few fundamental characteristics: the families have to live in the same areas where are living the beneficiaries, the family should belong to Garo tribe (in India), practice some form of agriculture (namely cash crops, paddy production, animal husbandry) and receive no goods or services from the PC. This few characteristics are considered sufficient to define a control group, due to the common economic environment in the surrounding area.

It was planned to interview roughly 200 families both in India and DRC. The sample number was determined on the economic and temporal availability base of the project. The design project envisages that the beneficiaries are followed over time in terms of technical assistance as well as means of production. This implies some beneficiaries suited to the overall availability of the Pilot Center. The original choice was to make a small group that serves as a "positive example easy to copy for neighbours".That has resulted in a compromise between the best amount of the family involved in the survey and the time local staff has been spent in the interview While in India the target was almost reached, in DRC, the situation has revelled more complicated than expected. That led to interview less than half of the families targeted.

However, in both cases, the local staff has been able to interview both beneficiary and non-beneficiary families. The total sample consisted of 194 households for India (sorted in 112 non-beneficiaries – NB - family and 82 Beneficiaries - B) and 83 for DR Congo, sorted in 45 non-beneficiaries (NB) family and 38 Beneficiaries (B).

The sampling error that may have been introduced by this selection procedure was considered insignificant because the socio-economic conditions are homogeneous among households.

Nevertheless, the presence of selection bias was reduced using a proper statistical approach, the propensity score matching, which will be described in the following sections. Along with the questionnaire, a target interview with key persons (physicians, rural head office, local traders) was conducted. Other sources of information were the internal report of the PC and Mission Report of the Italian team.

5.2. Methodology