Making Progress

Last week we facilitated the training workshop for all the Baseline Study interviewers, supervisors, and assistants. This week they are in the field (i.e. rural villages) using the questionnaires to collect data. Buck (our Baseline consultant) and I are now working on the next stage - figuring out how to use the data they're collecting to determine the % accomplished for each indicator, and then writing computer programs to calculate these percentages. For example, I need to figure out the "Percentage of beneficiary children 0-5.9m who were exclusively breastfed in the last 24h". So I look at the survey tool - if the caregiver says "yes" that the child is currently being breastfed, and "yes" that the child received breastmilk in the last 24h and "no" to any other foods or liquids in the past 24h, then I can count that child as being "exclusively breastfed". I also need to calculate my denominator - number of total children <= 5 months. And then I get to write the computer program to calculate this using a bunch of IF, THEN, ELSE statements. It's enough to make one's head spin!