The Rural Income Generating Activities (RIGA) Project is a collaboration between the Food and Agriculture Organization, the World Bank, and American University (Washington, DC) that seeks to contribute to the understanding of the income generating activities, both agricultural and non-agricultural, of rural households in developing countries. The RIGA project achieves this by two means. First, through the development of an innovative database of income sources from various developing countries, which is available free of charge to researchers via the project’s website. Second, by producing studies and publications that use the database to analyze pressing economic and policy issues.
Purpose
The RIGA Project's purpose is to create an income measure that is comparable within and between countries.[1]
The RIGA Project Logo
According to the RIGA Project website,[2] the key questions addressed by the RIGA Project include:
What are the relationships between the various Rural Income Generating Activities (RIGAs)?
What types of RIGAs are associated with poverty reduction?
What is the relationship between various Rural Non-Farm activities and agriculture?
What is the link between RIGAs and food security?
In order to answer these questions, the RIGA Project developed a standardized income calculation method that is applied only to country surveys that meet strict criteria of data requirements. The definition of income utilized closely adheres to the one set out by the International Labour Organization. The "Resolution Concerning Household Income and Expenditure Statistics" passed by ILO outlines that household income includes all monetary and in-kind receipts that a household receives, which should include income from wage employment, self-employment, property, own consumption of household goods, and both public and private transfers.[3] Since agriculture remains the principal activity for rural households, the RIGA Project also considers income generated from on-farm activities, both those sold and consumed by the household.[4][5][6]
History
The need for standardized income data has arisen from the desire of the development community to understand the economic activities of rural households, especially the rural non-farm activities that have been continually overlooked even as the importance of the rural non-farm economy increases.[7] With this in mind, the RIGA Project was initiated as a collaboration between the Food and Agriculture Organization, the World Bank, and American University (Washington, DC).[8] Only after consultation on the methodology between the partners, did the analysis and compilation of the data begin in 2005. Since 2005, the RIGA Project has created income aggregates for almost 30 countries, which became available to the public, free of charge, with the launch of the website in April 2009. The work of the Project has continued to expand with the addition of RIGA-L. The RIGA-Labor data provides a more in-depth look into the wage employment element of income generating activities, with analysis possible both at the individual and job level.[9]
Data
The database contains an increasing number of surveys from countries in Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe and Latin America. Some of the countries have surveys for multiple years, with some of the multi-year countries (e.g. Indonesia, Nepal, Nicaragua, and Vietnam) including panel datasets.[10]
Africa
Ghana - Ghana Living Standards Survey 1992
Ghana - Ghana Living Standards Survey 1998
Kenya - Integrated Household Budget Survey 2004-2005
Madagascar - Enquête Permanente Auprès Des Ménages 1993-1994
Madagascar - Enquête Permanente Auprès Des Ménages 2000-2001
A Profile of the Rural Poor
April 2009
A. Valdés, W. Foster, G. Anríquez, C. Azzarri, K. Covarrubias, B. Davis, S. DiGiuseppe, T. Essam, T. Hertz, A.P. de la O, E. Quiñones, K. Stamoulis, P. Winters and A. Zezza
