Reality Checks in Mozambique. Approach and Methodologies

Abstract

A series of five “Reality Checks in Mozambique” will take place in the period 2011-2016, focussing on the dynamics of poverty and well-being with a particular focus on good governance, agriculture/climate and energy that are key sectors in Swedish development cooperation with the country. Each Reality Check will be published in the form of one Annual Report and three Sub-Reports from each of the three selected study-sites. This report is outlining the methodological approach of the studies – answering to the call in the project’s Terms of Reference to “[c]ontribute to a better understanding of qualitative poverty monitoring methods in Mozambique”.The report will be introduced by a brief outline of our analytical approach and understanding of ‘poverty’ as a concept (Chapter 2). Following this, we will give a description of the concrete qualitative and quantitative methodologies used in the study-series. While methodologies of this type should be under constant revision and adopted to the special circumstances of each individual field context, the way they are presented is based on long-term experience of the core team members from applied qualitative poverty studies and our experience from fieldwork for the 1 st Reality Check.