Impact Evaluation of Productive Social Action Program 2025

Baseline Survey

At the program level, the participant districts were selected based on the severity of food insecurity, poverty levels, and vulnerability to natural shocks, including extreme weather and other environmental risks, with a specific emphasis on arid and semi-arid regions. Once districts were selected, local authorities identified communities with higher levels of poverty and food insecurity. These areas typically have higher unemployment rates, lower agricultural production, and are more prone to droughts and floods. A list of selected communities was prepared and shared with the local INAS Delegation for prioritization within district targets. Finally, within selected communities, final beneficiaries were selected through several steps. First, the head of the locality or community leader, with technical support from the INAS Delegation and the INAS community representative (so-called “Permanentes”), prepared a preliminary list of households that fulfill the PASP’s targeting criteria. This pre-registration was shared with the District Government and is collated centrally. Household eligibility was then verified during a household validation/registration process. Household information collected through the validation/registration form was then used to calculate a Proxy Means Test (PMT) vulnerability score for each proposed beneficiary. With support from the PMT results, a final list of beneficiaries was prepared for each community to enter the PASP-PW component.

For the impact evaluation, the final sample comprises a selection of the beneficiaries of the 2025 PASP cycle. First, the provinces of Niassa, Nampula, Sofala, Manica and Gaza were selected jointly with the MTGAS and INAS to be part of the impact evaluation. Within each province, ten districts for the impact evaluation were selected based on three criteria, (i) being rural, as those generally have the highest poverty rates, (ii) the vulnerability to climate risks of drought, floods, and cyclones, and (iii) having not recently implemented a cycle of the PASP. Within the ten selected districts, INAS has used their standard selection process to pre-identify 436 communities for the implementation of PASP-PW and PASP-ADIGR. The research team worked with the Government to identify geographic units (a community, or a combination of neighboring communities) that could form beneficiary groups between 15 to 40 households to select a final sample of 285 communities. INAS then identified beneficiaries within communities, creating a sample frame of 6,864 eligible beneficiaries to be surveyed at baseline. In post-intervention data collection rounds, up to 15 households will be sampled from the list of eligible households, forming a final sample of up to 4,275 households.