Women’s Empowerment and Nutrition (WEN) Survey 2024
Sierra Leone, 2024
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SLE-StatsSL-WEN-2024-v01
Women’s Empowerment and Nutrition (WEN) Survey 2024
WEN 2024
| Name | Country code |
|---|---|
| Sierra Leone | SLE |
Agricultural Survey [ag/oth]
The Women's Empowerment and Nutrition (WEN) module was integrated into the Annual Agricultural Survey 2024 under the umbrella of the 50x2030 Initiative to close the agricultural data gap https://www.50x2030.org/, a global partnership of the World Bank, FAO and IFAD aimed to strengthen the availability of data on agriculture.
This is the first WEN survey in Sierra Leone, designed to generate nationally representative statistics on empowerment and women's dietary diversity among agricultural households.
The Women's Empowerment and Nutrition Survey (WEN) 2024 provides nationally representative data on women's/men's empowerment and women's dietary diversity within agricultural households in Sierra Leone. Implemented by Statistics Sierra Leone (Stats SL) in collaboration with the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security (MAFS), and with technical support of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). The survey had four key objectives:
- Measure women's and men's empowerment and women's dietary diversity at individual level in agricultural households, providing policymakers with evidence for gender-responsive planning.
- Refine and test the 'Womens Empowerment Metric for National Statistical Systems https://weai.ifpri.info/wemns/ (WEMNS) developed by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), Emory University, Oxford University, and the World Bank.
- Showcase the feasibility of integrating empowerment and nutrition indicators into existing agricultural survey programs.
- Build national capacity in the collection and analysis of gender and nutrition statistics.
The survey captured information on empowerment (agency, rights, resources, collective action) and women's dietary diversity (MDD-W), allowing analysis of the intersection between gender inequality, agricultural participation, and nutritional outcomes.
Sample survey data [ssd]
Agricultural households.
Version
v1.0: This is the first version of the edited and anonymized datasets.
Scope
The WEN survey covered:
a) Women's empowerment domains i.e., claiming rights, making choices, engaging in communities, access to resources (WEMNS).
b) Tenure rights over agricultural land (SDG 5.a.1) and residential dwelling.
c) Dietary Diversity for Women (MDD-W).
| Topic | Vocabulary | URI |
|---|---|---|
| Gender Equality | ELSST Thesaurus | https://thesauri.cessda.eu/elsst-5/en/ |
| Food Security | ELSST Thesaurus | https://thesauri.cessda.eu/elsst-5/en/ |
Coverage
National coverage
Male and female members living in agricultural households aged between 18 and 64 years.
Producers and sponsors
| Name |
|---|
| Statistics Sierra Leone |
| Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security |
| Name | Affiliation | Role |
|---|---|---|
| Food and Agriculture Organization | United Nations | Technical assistance |
| Name | Abbreviation |
|---|---|
| Government of Sierra Leone | |
| Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations | FAO |
| Gates Foundation | BMGF |
Sampling
The survey targeted adult members aged 18-64 living in agricultural households. Because the MDD-W indicator is validated for women of reproductive age, the nutrition section was administered only to women.
To meet the survey's measurement objectives, three estimation domains were defined: women 18-49, women 18-64, and men 18-64. The two overlapping women's domains ensured adequate precision for MDD-W among women 18-49 while also allowing empowerment estimates for women 18-64. For each domain, the sample was designed to estimate individual empowerment indicators, a summary empowerment metric (WEMNS), the proportion of women consuming at least five MDD-W food groups with an expected sampling error of 5 percent.
The WEN sample was drawn from sample of the national agricultural survey. First a subsample of households was selected within each stratum with simple random selection probability. Within the selected households a fixed number of adults were randomly chosen in the field after listing all household members. The subsampling of individuals within the selected households was performed through a simple random sampling stratified by gender and age and it was performed in the field after having listed all household members. Hence, the sampling of the WEN survey adopted the same stratification criteria as the agricultural survey sample. Acknowledging clustering and intra-household correlation, the sampling design assumed a design effect of 3.5.
For more detailed information on the sampling methodology and calculations of sample size, please check annex 1 of the survey report, attached as an external resource/documentation.
Out of the 2,525 households originally selected, 19 households were not visited. Further, 172 sampled households could not be interviewed due to one or more of the following reasons: dwelling destroyed; fieldwork window in the EA had closed; no one at home despite repeated visits; household not found or relocated; entire EA deserted; no competent respondent available at the time of visit.
In addition, 16 households refused individual interviews, 28 households had no eligible members, and 71 households could not be interviewed because eligible members were absent during visits and did not return by the end of the day. Thus, a total of 2219 households were interviewed.
As a result, the rate of non-response was very low: 0.6%. Rate of ineligibility was also around 1.1%. In the households one eligible respondent was randomly chosen per stratum (women 18-49, women 50-64, men 18-64). Thus, a household could contribute to one to three individual interviews, but never more than one in the same category.
Achieved interviews:
a. Women 18-64: 2,146 (of which 1,793 were women 18-49, i.e., 353 women 50-64)
b. Men 18-64: 1,707.
The design sampling weight for each individual is the product of the household weight and the weight of the respondent within the household. Design individual weights were adjusted for non-response and calibrated to ensure consistency with population totals.
Survey instrument
The 2024 Women's Empowerment and Nutrition (WEN) questionnaire encompasses multiple topics: time use and agency; community participation and leadership; financial services and credit; property ownership and tenure security; decision-making and control over income; ICT access and use; women's dietary diversity (MDD-W). The CAPI instrument contained automated quality checks and skip patterns. The questionnaire collected information across the following modules:
- Module D - Paid and Unpaid Activities. Captures time use in the last seven days: household chores, care work, market activities, paid work, farming (subsistence and commercial), leisure, religious/cultural events, learning. It records decision-making power over how much time respondents dedicate to each activity.
- Module E - Participation and Leadership in Community. Assesses participation in and leadership of different community groups (government, service, financial, livelihood, and religious/social groups). Gender-specific perception questions:
a. For women: perceptions of women's ability to participate and be heard in the community.
b. For men: same but framed around men's participation. - Module F - Life Transitions and Awareness of Rights (Women only). Measures women's agreement with rights-based statements (education, work, income use, property ownership, marriage/divorce, childbearing decisions). Captures attitudes toward women's autonomy across life transitions.
- Module G - Financial Services and Credit. Records use of financial services in the past 12 months (mobile money, bank account, ATM, credit card). Assesses access to loans from formal (banks, cooperatives, microfinance) and informal (savings groups, moneylenders, NGOs) institutions.
- Module H - Property Ownership. Measures ownership and rights to agricultural land and dwellings. Asks about ability to sell, bequeath, or document property rights. Captures security of tenure by asking for the likelihood of involuntary loss.
- Module I - Decision-Making and Control over Income. Assesses individual influence over use of household money (own and others'), major household purchases, decisions on personal healthcare.
- Module J - Information Communication Technologies (ICT). Measures frequency of use of mobile phones, internet and social media platforms.
- Module L - Sexual Harassment (Women only). Captures attitudes on acceptability of different forms of harassment: verbal disrespect, work restrictions, rumor-spreading unwanted romantic/sexual advances and exchange of work benefits for sexual favors. Asked in private, ensuring no one could overhear the questions.
- Module M - Food and Drinks Consumed in Last 24 Hours (Women only). 24-hour dietary recall to measure Minimum Dietary Diversity for Women (MDD-W). Lists food groups (cereals, roots/tubers, legumes, nuts, dairy, meat/fish, eggs, leafy greens, vegetables, fruits, oils/fats, sweets, beverages, insects). Provides standardized recall for comparability across individuals.
- Module N - Information on Respondent. Records literacy, schooling history, and highest education level.
Other processing also occured at various stages.
-
Data Entry: Enumerators recorded responses directly into tablets during interviews, eliminating the need for separate data entry. Built-in skips, range checks, and mandatory fields minimized capture errors. Data were periodically synchronized to a central server managed by Stats SL, ensuring secure storage and timely availability for processing.
-
Data Cleaning: Upon synchronization, the dataset underwent automated validation to flag missing or invalid values, out-of-range responses, skip-pattern violations, duplicate IDs, and key cross-module consistency (e.g., roster-eligibility alignment; women-only routing for Modules F, L, M). Technical staff (Stats SL/MAFS, with FAO support) conducted manual reviews of flagged records, applying predefined editing rules and documenting all corrections. Where necessary, issues were reconciled using field notes or supervisor feedback. These steps ensured datasets were accurate and complete before analysis and reporting.
Data collection
| Start | End | Cycle |
|---|---|---|
| 2024-07 | 2024-08 | Single Visit |
- Computer Assisted Personal Interview [capi]
| Name | Affiliation | Abbreviation |
|---|---|---|
| Statistics Sierra Leone | Government of Sierra Leone | Stats SL |
| Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security | Government of Sierra Leone | MAFS |
Supervisors managed day-to-day operations and logistics; coordinated EA coverage and enumerator workload; monitored data quality (completeness, internal consistency, and adherence to protocols); provided immediate feedback and corrective guidance; resolved technical issues (including CAPI troubleshooting and question interpretation); conducted spot checks and direct observation of interviews; and compiled progress reports for central coordination.
Enumerators conducted interviews in accordance with protocol, maintained respondent confidentiality and privacy, ensured accurate CAPI entry, and reported operational issues promptly to supervisors.
Data collection ran concurrently with the post-harvest visit of the national agricultural survey 2024. To ensure coordination, WEN fieldworkers mirrored the agricultural survey structure. Twenty-six teams were deployed nationwide; each composed of one supervisor and one or two enumerators (26 supervisors and 30 enumerators in total).
Fieldwork supervisors and enumerators received structured training prior to data collection, delivered by Statistics Sierra Leone (Stats SL) and the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security (MAFS) with technical support of FAO. Training emphasized data quality, CAPI use, informed consent, confidentiality, and respondent safeguarding. In order to minimize bias and respondent discomfort particular attention was given to the sensitive sections of the questionnaire (e.g., harassment attitudes and the 24-hour dietary recall), with practical role-plays on privacy protocols and neutral probing.
The WEN teams visited the same EAs as the agricultural survey but operated independently, following the standard procedures of making at least three contact attempts per selected respondent and avoiding proxy respondents. Interviews were required to be in a private environment. The MDD-W module followed standardized recall cues and food group lists to ensure comparability.
Average time per EA was 4-5 hours (excluding waiting time for agricultural survey teams) and typically included interview administration of up to 30 minutes for women and up to 20 minutes for men. Time per household ranged from 25 minutes to 1 hour 15 minutes, depending on the number and availability of eligible respondents.
Data processing
The data went through the following consistency checks:
- Rigorous internal and cross-module checks enforced skip logic and consistency.
- Rule-based imputation was applied where needed to maintain within-module coherence, for example, when a response contradicted a required filter or created a logical inconsistency between related items. In such cases value was recorded to maintain consistency.
- No statistical/model-based imputation was used to infer substantive values. All edits and imputations followed predefined rules and were fully documented in Stata do-files.
STATISTICAL DISCLOSURE CONTROL (SDC)
Statistical Disclosure Control (SDC) methods have been applied to the microdata files to protect the confidentiality of respondents. Such methods applied includes the recoding of certain variables e.g. age and level of education, as well as suppression of some data points.
Users must therefore be aware that data protection with SDC methods involves some modifications to the data, which can result in certain unwanted consequences such as information loss and bias, which may affect the resulting estimates and their parameters.
Data Access
| Name | Affiliation | URL | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Statistics Sierra Leone | Government of Sierra Leone | https://www.statistics.sl/ | microdata@statistics.sl |
| Is signing of a confidentiality declaration required? | Confidentiality declaration text |
|---|---|
| yes | Confidentiality of respondents is guaranteed by the Statistics Act of Sierra Leone, enacted in 2002. |
The datasets have been anonymized and are available as Public Use Files (PUF). They contain individual-level data (non-aggregated) that has undergone treatment to ensure strict confidentiality, preventing direct or indirect identification of individuals or households. This confidentiality protection aligns with relevant legislation.
Statistics Sierra Leone, Women's Empowerment and Nutrition Survey (WEN) 2024, Version 1.0 of the public use dataset (August 2025).
Dataset downloaded from https://microdata.statistics.sl/index.php/home
Disclaimer and copyrights
The original collectors of the data, Stats SL, MAFS, and the relevant funding agencies bear no responsibility for use of the data or for interpretations or inferences based upon such uses.
All rights reserved (c) 2018, Statistics Sierra Leone
Metadata production
DDI-SLE-StatsSL-WEN-2024-v01
| Name | Abbreviation | Affiliation | Role |
|---|---|---|---|
| Statistics Sierra Leone | Stats SL | Government of Sierra Leone | Documentation of the study |
| Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security | MAFS | Government of Sierra Leone | Documentation of the study |
| Food and Agriculture Organisation | FAO | United Nations | Documentation of the study |
Metadata version
Version 1.0 (August 2025). This is the first version of the DDI document for SLE-WEN 2024.