Shared Decision-Making

The indicator measures the proportion of households with spouses / partners where the decision on how the cash / voucher assistance is used was taken jointly. It indicates women’s decision-making power and the extent to which the assistance is likely to be used for meeting both women’s and men’s needs.

Collect the following data by conducting individual post-distribution monitoring interviews with a representative sample of the cash recipients who live with their spouse / partner (i.e. are married, live in civil union or are in a long-term partnership). Ensure that the survey records the respondent’s gender, so that you can analyse the data collected for this indicator.

RECOMMENDED SURVEY QUESTIONS (Q) AND POSSIBLE ANSWERS (A)

Q1: Who decided what the [specify: cash / voucher] your household received from [specify the organization] would be spent on?

A1: [only one answer possible; do not read the answers  to the respondent prior to them answering]

1) respondent themselves

2) spouse / partner

3) respondent and spouse jointly

4) respondent and another household member jointly

5) spouse and another household member jointly

6) another household member

7) someone outside the household

8) other - specify: ………………………….

To calculate the indicator’s value, divide the number of respondents who said that the decision was made by both the respondent and spouse / partner (i.e. option 3) by the total number of respondents. Multiply the result by 100 to convert it to a percentage.

to be added later

1) In many contexts, cash assistance is given to the heads of households who often are men. Subsequently, post-distribution surveys are also likely to be conducted with men. While some men might be honest about who decided how the received cash was used, others might know what the socially desirable answer is and claim that they decided together with their wives / partners even though this was not the case. Therefore, if the cash recipients were primarily men, consider one of the following options:

- changing the sampling of your entire survey from interviewing the cash recipients (i.e. largely men) to interviewing adult members of the supported households where 50% of the respondents are men and 50% are women (you can then disaggregate the data by gender); use this sampling only if it ties in with collecting the other data for the survey; or

- in addition to conducting a survey among the cash recipients, conduct a separate survey among the female members of the supported households, allowing you to gain women’s perspectives on the assistance their household received.