7
Sample weights were calculated for up-scaling the surveyed households and population to the total number of households and population in Afghanistan. The calculation was based on the official CSO population
estimate by province for January 2014 and average provincial household size derived from the survey. In view of the unequal implementation of the sample across seasons, a post-stratification adjustment was
imposed to give equal weight to the seasons. Annex IV gives an account of the background and technical details of the sampling design and
implementation.
2.7 Field operations
The ALCS 2013-14 field staff consisted of two mixed interview couples and one field supervisor for most of the 34 provinces of Afghanistan. The exceptions were Kabul
– where the field staff consisted of two supervisors and four interviewer couples
– and Herat, with one supervisor and three interviewer couples. The field operations were supervised by nine Regional Statistical Officers RSOs, who were selected from
the Provincial Statistical Officers PSOs. In addition, ALCS staff from CSO Headquarters performed monthly monitoring missions for direct feedback to interviewers and supervisors.
The survey instrument consisted of paper questionnaires for households and the male Shura. The male interviewers administered the interviews with the male household representative and the female
interviewers those with female household representative and other eligible female household members. The supervisor usually administered the male Shura interviews and performed the household listing update prior
to the data collection. Each of the field teams had a monthly interview target of on average 50 household interviews in 5 selected
clusters, resulting in a national monthly total of 1,700 household interviews. Data collection started in the second half of December 2013 Jadi 1392. Fieldwork delays were experienced during the months of the
presidential elections in April and June 2014 and during Ramazan in July 2014. However, the field staff managed to catch up with the largest part of the interview backlog, and only few interview clusters were
completed after mid December 2014. In addition to surveying the resident population during the entire survey period of 12 months, the nomadic Kuchi population was accessed in summer and autumn 2014.
The tasks of the RSOs included checking a sample of the completed questionnaires, as a second level of quality control in the field after the checking by supervisors. For this purpose, specific check lists were
developed. On a monthly basis, they transported batches of completed questionnaires and other survey documents back to CSO Headquarters and took new field supplies to the provinces. The PSOs were
responsible for the introduction of the field teams to the provincial and local authorities, for monitoring fieldwork progress and the security situation, and for verification of survey results in the field. In four
provinces field staff was replaced due to underperformance. Furthermore, two supervisors and 11 interviewers dropped out during the year-long cycle of data collection due to other reasons.
Further quality assurance during data collection was provided by seven members of the ALCS team at CSO Headquarters, who conducted field monitoring missions every survey quarter. These monitors focussed
specifically on those provinces from which questionnaires were returned with the most irregularities according to manual checking at Headquarters.
8
Provinces that faced most security challenges were Kapisa, Nangarhar, Ghanzni, Paktya, Sar-e-pul, Urozgan, Faryab, Helmand and Badghis. In view of recurrent access problems a security strategy was
developed. This strategy included mapping of insecure areas, security assessment in the field, consultation of relevant information sources PSOs, NSP Regional Management Units, CDCs, and discussions and
negotiations with relevant actors, such as governors, community leaders and Jahadi commanders.
9
As a last resort, insecure areas were replaced by more secure areas. The security situation in Zabul did not allow
participation of female interviewers, and consequently the female questionnaire modules could not be completed in this province.
10
Figure 2.1
shows the implementation of the survey in reference to the sampling design. Dark green districts are those in which the number of planned clusters were covered and
light green districts are those in which one or more clusters were covered, but fewer than planned. Orange- shaded districts appeared to be inaccessible for the interview teams, mostly because of security reasons,
while grey-shaded districts were not sampled to start with.
Figure 2.1: Survey coverage, by district, and by level of coverage
Out of the 385 sampled districts and provincial centres of Afghanistan, in 364 95 percent information was collected, although in 73 19 percent fewer interviews were conducted than originally planned. In total,
information from 2,023 clusters was collected for the resident population, against 2,040 clusters according to the sampling design 99 percent. Out of these, 1,787 clusters 88 percent were covered as originally
planned, while 148 7 percent were replaced with clusters from the reserve sample. Interviews of the remaining 48 clusters were conducted in the planned EA, but in another month than originally planned.
9
CSO acknowledges the valuable support of MRRD in the development and implementation of this strategy.
10
The exceptions were the food-security and child-labour modules, which were completed by the male interviewer.
9
From the 60 Kuchi clusters, 58 were covered according to the sampling design, whereas for the two remaining the targeted Kuchi population could not be found in the field.
2.8 Data processing
