Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.
The Millennium Villages Project (MVP) is a 'proof of concept' project to support African rural communities in meeting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Scientists in agriculture, nutrition and health, economics, energy, water, environment and information technology, working together with communities, local partners, and governments empower and backstop villages to accelerate progress in achieving the MDGs. The concept to prove is that science-based interventions, appropriate local institutions and community participation and empowerment can be combined to achieve the MDGs, within the cost estimates derived by The UN Millennium Project. The UK Department for International Development (DFID) has provided a grant of £11.5 million to implement a new Millennium Village in northern Ghana (distributed via its DFID-Ghana centre, based in Accra). The MV ran for several years from 2012 to 2016 with interventions targeting a cluster of communities with a total population of around 26,000. In the survey rounds of 2012, 2014 and 2016 the full MVP package of questionnaires were administered by the Earth Institute to track progress on the MDGs. The additional survey rounds of 2013 and 2015 administered a restricted version of the MVP household questionnaire focusing on tracking progress in poverty reduction. Users should note that the current study includes data from Years 0, 1, 2 and 3 of the study, conducted in 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2015 respectively. The site is located in Savannah Accelerated Development Authority (SADA) Region in Northern Ghana. It encompasses 34 communities located in three Area Councils, in the poorest sections of two District Assemblies. While MVPs across Africa have established their own monitoring and evaluation systems, designed by the Earth Institute at Columbia University, DFID has requested that the new MVP in northern Ghana be accompanied by an independent evaluation to build on, expand and validate the MVP's own monitoring and evaluation systems. The independent evaluation team of the northern Ghana MVP will use a difference-in-difference (DD) approach, by comparing the change in outcomes in the MVP areas before implementation to post-implementation, with changes in the same outcomes for an explicit control group. DD allows the evaluation to isolate the MVP impact on the MDGs from effects of other variables changing over time. Further information may be found on the Institute for Development Studies Millennium Villages in Northern Ghana Impact Evaluation webpage. For the fourth edition (September 2018), data and documentation for Year 4 (2016) were added to the study.
Main Topics:
The 'SADA-North Ghana Household Survey' is a survey instrument used to collect household-level data from communities in the treatment (MVP), control-near and control-far areas. The instrument covers modules on: the household roster; in-migration; out-migration; education; employment; malaria prevention; food, water and energy security; water use; sanitation; energy use; shocks to household welfare; common property resources, household construction; household assets; consumption and expenditure; savings; other sources of income; credit; land ownership and use; agricultural activities, livestock; animal-based products; social networks; project participation; crime; and, expectations.
Multi-stage stratified random sample
Face-to-face interview
