INTEGRATED SAFEGUARDS DATA SHEET IDENTIFICATION / CONCEPT STAGE Public Disclosure Copy Report No.: ISDSC16436 Date ISDS Prepared/Updated: 26-Apr-2016 I. BASIC INFORMATION A. Basic Project Data Country: Turkmenistan Project ID: P158751 Project Name: Development of a National Welfare Monitoring System Team Leader(s): Sarosh Sattar Estimated Date 21-Mar-2016 of Approval: Managing Unit: GPV03 Lending IPF Instrument: Sector(s): General public administration sector (100%) Theme(s): Poverty strategy, analysis and monitoring (100%) Financing (in USD Million) Total Project Cost: 0.35321 Total Bank Financing: 0 Financing Gap: 0 Financing Source Amount Trust Fund for Statistical Capacity Building 0.35321 Public Disclosure Copy Environment C - Not Required Category: B. Project Development Objective(s) 10. The primary objective of the proposed task is to support the Government of Turkmenistan in developing a modern national welfare monitoring system. This will require assisting the SSC to improve their household survey questionnaire, collect consumption and income data, and adopt international good practice in measuring poverty and the middle class (including non-monetary aspects such as access to services and employment). By working on the main aspects of welfare statistics, the aim is to ensure that the SSC upgrades its current household survey instrument and uses it more effectively to help inform government policy. Currently, little is known to what degree growth is translating into better living standards in the country. 11. The Bank support was requested to support the efforts in improving the welfare measurement system. More specifically, the project will build on the activities started by previous TF to strengthen SSC’s capacity to timely collect high quality household surveys, introduce new tools to quickly analyze household data and promote the use of micro data for distributional impact analysis. The TF will be used for the introduction of new systems of conducting surveys to monitor welfare and social indicators more frequently and cost effectively such as through Computer Assisted Personal Interviewing (CAPI). C. Project Description 13. The proposed project would provide technical assistance to the State Committee of Statistics (SCS) of Turkmenistan, especially the departments conducting the household survey, and transfer Public Disclosure Copy knowledge on best practices of welfare measurement and monitoring, including introduction to CAPI (Computer Assisted Personal Interviewing) methodology based on Survey Solutions software. The technical assistance is comprised of two main stages. The first stage will require a review of the existing steps involved in measuring welfare such as sample design, survey questionnaire, and survey implementation. The second stage will provide training to the Statistics Committee on CAPI implementation with Survey Solutions software, welfare measurement and methodology including the consumption aggregate, estimation of welfare lines, vulnerability and middle class measurement, and non-monetary welfare index. Stage 1: Household Survey Review 14. The objective of this stage is to understand the existing official system for monitoring monetary and non-monetary welfare (if any) and capacity of SCS in implementing CAPI in order to ensure that the technical advice provided at later stages builds upon existing systems. This stage will consist of workshops, consultations/interviews, technical review, and study tour. 15. Based on review of baseline status of the welfare measurement system in SSC the project consultant will conduct analysis and provide a high-level report and advice on the Turkmenistan household survey on the following key survey aspects: • The sample design review and advice will cover the SCS’s sampling approach, sample selection, sampling frame, sample size, and survey weights. • The review of the survey questionnaire will focus on issues of whether it collects relevant and sufficient information for measuring monetary and non-monetary welfare in Turkmenistan. • The survey implementation review will aim to document the SCS’s activities that take place before the fielding of the survey (for example, manuals, training, data entry), activities while the Public Disclosure Copy survey is in the field (such as supervision, transportation, communication, and data management), data entry and processing, and activities required after the survey is complete (debriefing, preparation of the final data set and documentation), and data analysis. Also, the capacity of the SCS staff to implement CAPI for official household survey data collection will be evaluated. 16. A review of the welfare measurement approach currently used for both monetary and non- monetary poverty. The purpose of this review is to provide a common in-depth understanding of the instrument used to measure welfare in Turkmenistan. The depth of the discussion will depend upon the level of detail shared by the SCS officials. This phase will deliver one report which: (i) describes the SCS’s sample design, survey questionnaire, survey implementation process, and welfare measurement methodology and (ii) provides high priority recommendations for improving the household survey in order to better measure welfare.A study tour of selected SCS officials to 3-4 countries [possibly, Moldova, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Armenia] will be suggested in order to see how different statistics departments approach collection and analysis of household survey data, including in CAPI. Stage 2: Welfare Measurement and New Technologies in Data Collection 17. The objective of Stage 2 would be to provide practical training to the SCS on how to measure monetary and non-monetary welfare including the size of the middle class (since poverty is a sensitive issue), CAPI. This stage builds upon the knowledge gained from the review stage and focuses on knowledge sharing. Public Disclosure Copy 18. The workshop on measuring monetary welfare will provide training on computing the consumption aggregate, establishing/estimating a welfare lines, a middle class line, and measuring the level/rate of vulnerability and the middle class. The data used for the training should be the government’s existing official household survey data and this should be provided in confidence and specifically for the purposes of this training. 19. The workshop on non-monetary welfare will introduce the concept and techniques of measuring welfare from multidimensional perspective. The workshop will provide an overview of approaches used to measure multidimensional welfare and the methodology for estimating the index, covering selection of dimensions, indicators, cut-offs and then decomposing the dynamics of the index overtime. 20. The workshop on CAPI will provide hands–on training on fundamentals of implementing CAPI for official household survey. It starts with focused training on implementation of “Survey Solutions”- a Bank software that is used to design, structure and implement the household questionnaire in electronic (tablet) format. The workshop will cover topics relevant for setting up a first survey in CAPI format: technical requirements for servers, wireless/transmission networks, tablets and operation systems. Depending on capacity and interest of SCS the workshop can be followed up by pilot field test of selected module of official household survey. 21. An Operational Manual on all methodological aspects of measuring monetary and non- monetary welfare will be produced to ensure sustainability of the methodology. Currently there is no practice and methodology in place to construct a national welfare line in Turkmenistan. The team will provide all the required methodological materials with international experience in welfare measurement. Public Disclosure Copy D. Project location and salient physical characteristics relevant to the safeguard analysis (if known) E. Borrower’s Institutional Capacity for Safeguard Policies F. Environmental and Social Safeguards Specialists on the Team II. SAFEGUARD POLICIES THAT MIGHT APPLY Safeguard Policies Triggered? Explanation (Optional) Environmental Assessment OP/ No BP 4.01 Natural Habitats OP/BP 4.04 No Forests OP/BP 4.36 No Pest Management OP 4.09 No Physical Cultural Resources OP/ No BP 4.11 Public Disclosure Copy Indigenous Peoples OP/BP 4.10 No Involuntary Resettlement OP/BP No 4.12 Safety of Dams OP/BP 4.37 No Projects on International No Waterways OP/BP 7.50 Projects in Disputed Areas OP/BP No 7.60 III. SAFEGUARD PREPARATION PLAN Appraisal stage ISDS required?: No IV. APPROVALS Team Leader(s): Name: Sarosh Sattar Approved By: Safeguards Advisor: Name: Zeynep Durnev Darendeliler (SA) Date: 29-Apr-2016 Practice Manager/ Name: Carolina Sanchez (PMGR) Date: 29-Apr-2016 Manager: 1 Reminder: The Bank's Disclosure Policy requires that safeguard-related documents be disclosed before appraisal (i) at the InfoShop and (ii) in country, at publicly accessible locations and in a form and language that are accessible to potentially affected persons. Public Disclosure Copy