Adaptive Safety Net Project - Psychosocial Study 2018-2022
Niger, 2018 - 2022
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NER_2018-2022_ASPPS_v01_M
Adaptive Safety Net Project - Psychosocial Study 2018-2022
ASP PS 2018-2022
| Name | Country code |
|---|---|
| Niger | NER |
Other Household Survey [hh/oth]
This deposit includes data from individual-level surveys (intervention timepoint and endline timepoint) and administrative data from an embedded experiment on single-session agency interventions within the Full and Psychosocial arms of the trial reported in the following paper: Bossuroy, Thomas; Goldstein, Markus; Karimou, Bassirou; Karlan, Dean; Kazianga, Harounan; Pariente, William; Premand, Patrick; Thomas, Catherine; Udry, Christopher; Vaillant, Julia; Wright, Kelsey. 2022. "Tackling Psychosocial and Capital Constraints Opens Pathways out of Poverty". It also includes ancillary data with predictions from a U.S. sample on women’s models of agency in Niger. These two datasets are published along with the related paper: Thomas, C.C., Premand, P., Bossuroy, T., Sambo, A. S., Markus, H.R., & Walton, G.W. 2025. “How Culturally Wise Interventions Can Help Reduce Poverty.”
Sample survey data [ssd]
Individuals
Version
Edited, anonymized dataset for public distribution.
Coverage
The study focuses on a sub-sample of communes in all five regions chosen for the second phase of the Niger Adaptive Safety Net project (Dosso, Maradi, Tahoua, Tillabery, and Zinder). 6 communes were selected for the study, covering 33 villages across the 5 regions where cash transfer beneficiaries were eligible to receive complementary productive inclusion measures. In each sample village, approximately 80 households were included in this experiment.
Producers and sponsors
| Name | Affiliation |
|---|---|
| Catherine Thomas | University of Michigan |
| Patrick Premand | World Bank |
| Name | Role |
|---|---|
| Sahel Adaptive Social Protection Program | Funded survey data collection |
| Wellspring Philanthropic Fund’ | Funded survey data collection |
| Niger Adaptive Safety Nets Project | Provided sampling frame and implemented program |
Sampling
Cash transfer beneficiary households were chosen by either proxy means testing, community-based targeting, and a formula to proxy temporary food insecurity (as described in Premand and Schnitzer, 2021). Cash transfer beneficiary households were later assigned to either a control group or 3 productive inclusion treatment arms. All three treatment arms include a core package of group savings promotion, coaching, and entrepreneurship training, in addition to the regular cash transfers from the national program. The first variant also includes a lump-sum cash grant (“capital” package). The second variant substitutes the cash grant with psychosocial interventions (“psychosocial” package). The third variant includes the cash grant and the psychosocial interventions (“full” package). The control group only receives the regular cash transfers from the national program. For details on this main trial, see Bossuroy et al. (2022).
For the experiment on single-session agency interventions that was embedded within the main program, the sample included all program participants in a non-random subset of 33 villages in 6 communes (n = 2,628). Randomization was stratified by the timing of the delivery of the multi-faceted program described above (Early: February-March / Late: April), the main trial treatment arm (Full or Psychosocial), and participation in the main trial baseline survey (Yes/No). Randomization occurred at the individual level. The study was powered for a minimum detectable effect (MDE) size between each of the psychosocial interventions and the control condition of Cohen’s d of 0.14 and the psychosocial interventions (pooled) and the control condition of Cohen’s d of 0.11, with 80% power using a two-tailed independent samples t-test at a = .05. This target MDE required n = 613 for each of the two psychosocial intervention arms and 1,192 for the control arm. Assuming a rate of 8% for attrition, our target sample size was n = 2,628 (n = 1,296 for the control condition and n = 666 for each of the treatment conditions).
For the ancillary data containing predictions from a U.S. sample, we recruited 302 respondents based in the U.S. from CloudResearch’s MTurk Toolkit platform to take a descriptive survey.
The original sample for the embedded experiment included 2628 households, of which 2,493 participated in the endline survey (94.9%). Of the 1,332 randomized to one of the two intervention conditions, 1,276 participated in the intervention.
Survey instrument
Household surveys were collected in 2 survey rounds as described above. See Thomas et al. (2025) and attached codebooks for details. All materials were translated to French and then to local languages, Zarma and Hausa. It was delivered aloud in the preferred language of the respondent. French was the primary language of material development; wording in English in this questionnaire is approximate. The English versions of the questionnaires are available for download, as well as instruments from SurveyCTO in French.
Data collection
| Start | End | Cycle |
|---|---|---|
| 2018-02 | 2018-04 | Intervention Implementation and Post-intervention Survey |
| 2019-04 | 2019-05 | Endline |
| 2022-12 | 2022-12 | U.S. sample (predictions) |
- Face-to-face [f2f]
Data collection was supervised by field coordinators from Sahel Consulting, and the co-authors. The supervision team also worked in collaboration with the safety nets unit. Thorough quality control procedures were put in place, with systematic verifications of questionnaires by enumerators and supervisors. Additional verifications, including household visits, were undertaken by the coordination and quality control teams continuously over the full survey period.
Data used in this study was collected using Android tablets and the SurveyCTO Platform developed by Dobility, Inc, versions 2.0 – 2.6.
Data Access
| Name | Affiliation |
|---|---|
| Catherine Thomas | University of Michigan |
| Patrick Premand | World Bank |
Use of the dataset must be acknowledged using a citation which would include:
- the Identification of the Primary Investigator
- the title of the survey (including country, acronym and year of implementation)
- the survey reference number
- the source and date of download
Example:
Catherine Thomas (University of Michigan), Patrick Premand (World Bank). Niger - Adaptive Safety Net Project - Psychosocial Study 2018-2022 (ASP PS 2018-2022). Ref: NER_2018-2022_ASPPS_v01_M. Downloaded from [uri] on [date].
Disclaimer and copyrights
The user of the data acknowledges that the original collector of the data, the authorized distributor of the data, and the relevant funding agency bear no responsibility for use of the data or for interpretations or inferences based upon such uses.
Contacts
| Name | Affiliation | |
|---|---|---|
| Catherine Thomas | University of Michigan | thomascc@umich.edu |
| Patrick Premand | World Bank | ppremand@worldbank.org |
Metadata production
DDI_NER_2018-2022_ASPPS_v01_M_WB
| Name | Abbreviation | Affiliation | Role |
|---|---|---|---|
| Development Data Group | DECDG | World Bank | Documentation of the study |
2025-09-30
Metadata version
Version 01 (2025-09-30)