Institutional Learning and Change Initiative

The following text is drawn from Guijt and Woodhill (2002).

Social mapping or well-being ranking

The purpose of this method is to identify households on the basis of predefined indicators related to socio-economic conditions. This method concentrates on a relative ranking of people’s socio-economic conditions (e.g., relatively well-off and worse-off), rather than making an absolute assessment. From an M&E perspective, this method can help assess which households are benefiting from the project and if these belong to the intended target group.

Social mapping can provide an overview of any socio-economic aspects, such as leadership, professions, skills and experiences in a community, as well as its well-being. However, well-being ranking focuses on a community’s perceptions of well-being, such as status, size of land and family, income, etc. In both cases, with your base map and your clustered households, you can focus on any monitoring issue such as "access of poor/middle/higher-income households to water supply and sanitation facilities".

Both methods are also useful for a purpose or quota sampling procedure, by making a selection from different well-being classes.

By discussing what well-being means at each monitoring event, it is also possible to track changes in the criteria of well-being to see if people’s aspirations are shifting.

This method is most useful when ranking in groups of a limited size. You can use it in larger communities, focusing on neighbourhood-specific rankings, but it will be difficult to compare results between sections

Source: Guijt, I. and J. Woodhill (2002). Managing for Impact in Rural Development : A guide for project M & E. Rome, Italy: International Fund for Agricultural Development http://www.ifad.org/evaluation/guide/index.htm