Low Cost & Effective Alternative to the HDVI: Frequency Listing (WFP 2017)

The freelisting based Frequency Listing (“Freq Listing”) is a statistically robust methodology developed by Timothy Schwartz of Socio-Dig (Haiti) for identifying local leader-experts (notab) and ultimately humanitarian aid beneficiaries. It comes to us from anthropology and mathematical models for studying informal sector and non-literate cultures and rests on the premise of “Culture as Consensus.”  The development of the technique was underwritten by the World Food Program. This is the report summarizing and describing its application. For those interested in the original consultancy and research on vulnerability targeting in Haiti that led to the development of the technique go here, if you want to read about an actual test of the strategy, go here, and to read about how and why the technique could have a dramatic impact on the way we do ‘development’ go here.