To measure the impact of the convergence approach on the selected districts an annual household survey called the Child Risk Measure (CRM). The survey tracked about 49 key indicators on an annual basis. The CRM also measures the same indicators in three additional districts (control areas) that are not part of the convergent approach in order to understand if the convergent approach is having any real impact. The control districts are selected on the basis of poverty levels (i.e having a high proportion of the population below the national poverty line as per the last Household and Income Expenditure, Survey). The three selected districts are Habigang, Nilphamari and Sherpur. The CRM survey is the first survey and the finding from the survey serve as the baseline along with the information collected at the Upazila level through MICS for the convergence approach to programming.

The CRM is part of the 2009 work plan with the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) but because of the ongoing activities on the Upazila MICS, The research agency handed over the clean raw data file(s) to BBS for subsequent processing, analysis and report writing. Quality assurance and supervision of activities during the field data collection and data entry were overseen by BBS and UNICEF.

Understanding of the Assignment:

The major purpose of the assignment were to collect and process of data for a sample of 68,000 households drawn from 3,450 clusters across seven low performing districts and three control districts. The broad categories of indicator for the survey are including health and nutrition education, water and environmental sanitation; and child protection. 

The CRM survey was a large survey operation requiring collection of data from a very large sample in only 3 months. There were no surveys ever taken in the country with a large sample as CRMS’s involving data collection in such a short time. Translation, pre-testing and finalization of questionnaires, recruitment and training of interviewers, quantitative data collection through face-to-face interview, collection of anthropometric data and hemoglobin level, data processing and submissions of cleaned data sets to BBS– all these tasks for the survey are stipulated to be completed in a 6 months period. The analysis established baseline data against which progress is measured in subsequent years.

Sample design:

Based on our experience with the 2006 MICS, we assumed that the CRMS sample would be a two-stage sample.  The first stage sample consists of 3,450 rural ‘Mouzas’ or urban ‘Mahallas’ selected with Probability Proportional to Size (PPS) from 69 Upazilas of 10 districts.  The households for interviewing were selected in the second stage, selecting 20 households from each of 3,450 clusters to yield a total sample of 69,000 (3,450 x 20 = 69,000) households for the survey. However, we understand that BBS done these selections and provide Mitra the clusters’ household lists along with the cluster map and list of selected households to be interviewed.