The Ministry of Women and Children Affairs (MOWCA) recently combined two existing cash based safety nets – the rural Maternity Allowance (MA) and urban Lactating Mother Allowance (LMA) programs – to develop a new, improved program: the Mother and Child Benefit Program (MCBP). MCBP is intended to ultimately scale up nationally. International Food Policy and Research Institute (IFPRI) has taken the responsibility to assess the viability of such a program and asses its impact on birth outcomes and child nutrition. This survey was labled Joint Interventions to Improve Birth Outcomes and Nutrition (JIBON). IFPRI have recruited Data Analysis and Technical Assistance (DATA), to undertake specific activities in JIBON. The main purpose of this consultancy is to enroll pregnant woman, carry out structured face to face interviews of sampled enrolled pregnant woman at different stages of pregnancy and on after delivery and collect newborn anthropometric measurement at birth and at two months of age.

The survey was initiated on the The six upazilas selected for the JIBON program are: Gangachra in Rangpur, Godagari in Rajshahi, Mehendiganj in Barisal, Mohanganj in Netrokona, Gowainghat in Sylhet and Chitalmari in Bagerhat. The survey began on February 16, 2023 and went on till September 19, 2014. The program required a list of conditions to be met for a certain household to be listed during the census. There were specific income sources and facility access conditions that were noted to recruit a household. The program enlisted mothers with one previous child or no child. So DATA observed the households from before pregnancy to child-birth.

Once DATA completed the recruitment process they soon started the data collection process. As soon as the mothers conceived a local detection worker appointed by DATA was assigned to give regular updates regarding the households to DATA, through weekly visits. The overall survey was conducted in four phases: s1, s2, s3 & s4.

S1 was conducted within the 14^th to 27^th week of pregnancy, where the households were regarding the mothers’ health, their dietary intake etc. S2 asked for similar set of questions but this phase was conducted on week 34 of pregnancy. DATA appointed a completely separate team for s3, calling this team the birth visit team. This team reached the newborn and the mothers within 48hrs of delivery to take necessary information of the newborn. For S4 again the s1 and s2 team visited two months after delivery to conduct a survey of the mother and child.

Due to the demanding nature of the survey DATA kept the entire field team in the field for a year. The entire field team displayed tremendous discipline staying in remote areas conducting timely surveys for each household. Since pregnancy cannot be predicted, the field team under DATA’s guidance showed exemplary management skills in data collection and data quality assurance. Without their dedication it to the project it wouldn’t have been possible to track and collect data on 3296 separate households with pregnant women.