manual for social impact assessment of land-based ... - Forest Trends

The poverty index can range from 0%, when the family possesses none of the basic necessities, to
100%, when it has all of them. If the poverty scores are recalculated using all of the items (even
those not considered to be basic necessities), and the poverty index is recalculated using the
maximum score from only the basic necessity items, then a score of ≥100% denotes households
living at or above the poverty line 8
(i.e., they possess all of the basic necessities).
Perceptions of ‘basic necessities’ change over time. When conducting a subsequent BNS (with the
same households), the focus group exercise should be repeated to see if any additional items need
to be added to the list or old ones deleted (since by now all households may have an item). Scores
can be calculated for each household both on the basis of a new extended list and, after excluding
the new items, according to the old list.
Although not part of the standard BNS approach, in order to assist the attribution analysis, a column
or two could be added to the standard BNS form asking respondents if they think that any change in
ownership of a basic necessity was due to the project, and if yes, asking them why they think this.
Finally it is possible to derive financial or economic measures from the BNS, as implied by the values
in Table T8, as well as a price index to show the rate of inflation (see TRANSLINKS (2007) for further
guidance).
Advantages and Disadvantages of the BNS
Main Advantages or Benefits Main Disadvantages or Limitations
• Cost-effective way of measuring change in
poverty
• A quantifiable indicator (index over time) that is
easy to communicate
• Good for differentiation, e.g., separating
stakeholders by female-headed households;
ethnic group; age of household head, etc.
• It is relatively simple to understand and analyze
– local people can be trained as facilitators
• Reported cost of US$3-4 per household
• ‘Attribution column’ could be added to BNS
form
• It does not tackle attribution per se, so needs to
be used with a quasi-experimental approach,
and therefore faces the challenge of control
selection
• The difficulty of comparing communities since
each community has its own definition of basic
necessities
8 This assumes that all the goods and services that are not basic necessities are superior goods (in economic
terms) whose consumption rises with income, rather than inferior goods whose consumption drops with rising
income.
Social Impact Assessment of Land-Based Carbon Projects (1.0) – Part II | 44