The Rural Household Multi-Indicator survey continues to revolutionize data collection

The Rural Household Multi-Indicator Survey (RHoMIS) has been featured in a new blog series by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, ‘Breaking Ground’. Written by Jacob van Etten, research director, digital inclusion at the Alliance of Bioversity International and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT); the article delves into how researchers at CGIAR standardized surveys to make data collected from over 13,000 rural households in 21 countries accessible.

‘The days of top-down, one-size-fits-all “solutions” for poor rural farmers are gone. Scientists interested in development questions have known this for some time. They fan out across the globe, questionnaires in hand, to learn about the needs of coffee producers in Honduras, bean growers in Kenya, and rice farmers in Vietnam. This works well to tailor research-for-development projects to local circumstances. But researchers overlook one critical element: standardizing surveys so others could use the information they gathered. ‘

Continue reading the article ‘Field Notes – How do we understand the needs of the rural poor on a global scale? One family farm at a time‘, to learn how the RHoMIS tool is revolutionizing the way researchers collect and analyze household data.