Welfare Core Survey

This report builds upon experience gained jointly with development partners in several national statistical offices, mainly in Angola, Malawi, Mozambique and South Sudan over a period of 15 years and demonstrates how to build a survey to document a given set of information needs in a regular manner with a core survey. The survey may be implemented as a self-standing exercise or combined with various subject matter modules. The welfare dimensions of the Millennium Development Goals have been the core information for regular reporting.

The report aims at documenting and justifying all steps of a core survey. This includes how to write a concept paper presenting the survey to a broader audience, how to design the questionnaire whether in paper or electronic format, sampling, planning and implementation of field work including training, manuals and control forms, data entry and quality control, time-line, budget and economic supervision, dummy tables, and recommendations for dissemination, storage of data, meta-data, and technical documentation.

The objectives and outline were prepared by Wold. Iversen and Schøning were instrumental in preparing the final prototype questionnaire building upon our cooperation with colleagues in the partner national statistical offices. They further prepared the draft prototype questionnaire and manuals which are enclosed as appendices. Jointly with Øvensen, they prepared inputs on survey implementation, field work and data processing. Opdahl and Jentoft prepared the first draft on sampling and Kristiansen the chapter on dissemination. Wold and Iversen wrote all contributions into a final report.

We like to thanks colleagues in several partner countries for a joint learning process over several years and the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs for providing the main bulk of funding for this cooperation.

Authors: Bjørn K. Getz Wold, Gunvor Iversen, Susie Jentoft, Jan Erik Kristiansen, Stein Opdahl, Per Schøning, Geir Øvensen