Assets Control Score

The indicator assesses the proportion of the target female beneficiaries (or any other target group) who increased their control over the use of pre-defined resources.

Calculate the indicator's value by taking the following steps:

1) Define the resources women (or any other target group) should have a bigger control of. This can be, for example:

> decisions about the use of income from the household's agricultural production, e.g. the choice of foods purchased for the family's meals

> decisions about investments made for households' non-food items, e.g. ownership of more valuable assets

> other

2) Develop questions assessing women's control over the listed resources (see examples below) and conduct individual interviews with a representative sample of the targeted women.

EXAMPLES OF SURVEY QUESTIONS (Q) AND POSSIBLE ANSWERS (A)

Q1: Who decides how the income from your agricultural production is used? 

A1: the wife / the husband / both

Q2: Who decides which foods can be purchased for the family's meals? 

A2: the wife / the husband / both

Q3: Who decides about which bigger investments will your household make?

A3: the wife / the husband / both

Q4: Do you own any more expensive assets in this household? 

A4: no / yes - specify: ...................

3) Calculate the score: for every answer which shows that i) the woman can influence an important decision related to the resource's use or ii) owns a valuable asset, provide a score (alternatively, consider assigning different "weights" according to the decision's importance). Calculate the total scores.

4) Assess the changes: during the endline survey, interview the same women (repeat the process described in steps 2 and 3) and then compare their baseline and endline Asset Control Scores. Calculate the indicator's value by dividing the number of women with an increased Asset Control Score by the total number of interviewed women and multiplying the result by 100. 

1) The purpose of your activities (and also of this indicator) should be to ensure that – where relevant and culturally acceptable – women have the same control over certain assets as men do.

2) For comparing your baseline and endline data, the respondents of your endline survey must be members of exactly the same households that were interviewed during the baseline survey – otherwise you will not be able to determine the changes in their control over assets. This will require having a good system in place to make it easy to find and identify the same households that were involved in the baseline for the endline.

3) Keep in mind that your baseline survey needs to use a larger-than-required sample of respondents (increase it by a minimum of 25%) so that even if some cannot be found during the endline survey, you will still manage to interview a representative sample of people.