One of the key outputs of the Community-Based Monitoring System (CBMS) country projects is the CBMS database. CBMS datasets have been encoded using two platforms:
- Computer-Assisted Personal Interviewing (CAPI) mainly using CBMS Accelerated Poverty Profiling (APP) Scan in Android tablets and;
- Paper-based questionnaire encoded in spreadsheet/statistical software.
The CBMS country database contains household- and individual-level data gathered through face-to-face interviews of households in pilot sites for the conduct of research studies i.e. poverty profiling and thematic studies under the CBMS projects.
Data collection tools
All CBMS country teams developed a set of questionnaires in consultation with national and local government representatives. The data collection tools are developed based on standard census tools from the respective national statistical offices so data can be comparable. These tools are pretested before actual field data collection to ensure quality of information gathered. For selected country projects that adopted the tablet based system for data capture, customized CBMS APP Scan software were developed for the said projects by the CBMS Network Office.
Information collected
Core data in the database includes demography and socioeconomic characteristics of households and individuals in the project sites where the CBMS methodology was implemented. Implementation of CBMS generates a core set of multidimensional poverty indicators relating to: education, health and nutrition, income and livelihood, employment, peace and order, housing, access to programs, and other community-specific indicators and their corresponding disaggregation.
Additional survey questions are included as rider to the core instrument to gather sector-based or theme-based information related to specific themes such as youth employment and social protection to the informal sector among others.
Technical support
The CBMS Network Office, based at De La Salle University-Angelo King Institute for Economic and Business Studies (DLSU AKI), provides scientific support and capacity building to CBMS country project teams through a series of study visits, training workshops and online mentoring on the adoption of CBMS methodology, questionnaire design, development of indicators, field census operations using the CBMS tools, data processing, data analysis, report writing, dissemination, strategies for institutionalization and policy outreach.
