Afghanistan - Round 1 Hard to Reach (HtR)

Using Open Data Kit (Kobo Toolbox), 111 REACH enumerators collected 3,114 Key Informant Interviews (KIIs) across 3,114 settlements in 120 Hard to Reach (HtR) districts. Of these 2,668 were conducted face-to-face, while 447 were conducted over the phone. To define a HtR district, the Humanitarian Access Group (HAG) measured and ranked all of Afghanistan’s districts across these three dimensions and developed a list of the 103 districts with the highest inaccessibility/HtR score in July 2019. Considered factors included: (1) physical constraints, (2) conflict intensity, and (3) complexity of actors (presence of one or multiple armed actors that actively limits access to areas under their control). Based on this list, REACH updated and extended its existing portfolio of HtR districts, which were sampled, mapped, and assessed as part of the HtR assessment.To select key informants (KIs), each district was mapped and divided into Basic Service Units (BSUs). Together with community representatives, BSUs were identified and mapped as geographic areas that have common demographic/socio-economic features and in which communities rely on the same basic services and facilities, such as health facilities, markets, and schools. Following the mapping, key informants were identified through snowballing from existing networks from previous assessments and purposefully sampled, based on their knowledge of the community. Key informants commonly included community elders, teachers, nurses, or maliks (village chiefs). Each key informant interview (KII) was conducted in a separate settlement and at least 16% of all each district’s settlements were covered, resulting in an average of four KIIs per BSU.