Positioning household surveys for the next decade

Household surveys are a vital component of national statistical systems. They are the basis for official statistics on social and economic phenomena and are key to tracking progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). However, despite their importance, household surveys face various challenges, including problems with data quality, timeliness, and policy relevance, among others. Prepared by the United Nations Inter-Secretariat Working Group on Household Surveys (ISWGHS), this paper identifies eight technical priority areas for innovations in household survey design, implementation, and analysis. With these in mind, the paper also presents a set of recommendations for fostering enabling environments at the national and international levels to support the production of more and higher-quality household survey data that are affordable and responsive to policy needs. The paper aims to inform both the considerations of national statistical offices as they weigh priorities and pursue innovations to transform their household survey systems, as well as the work of ISWGHS in executing its mandate to support countries in achieving the SDGs. © 2022 - The authors.

The evolving socioeconomic impacts of COVID-19 in four African countries

The paper provides evidence on the evolving socioeconomic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic among households in Ethiopia, Malawi, Nigeria, and Uganda. The data allow estimating the immediate economic impacts of the pandemic, beginning in April 2020, and tracking how the situation evolved through September 2020. Although households have started to see recovery in income, business revenues, and food security, the gains have been relatively modest. Additionally, households have received very little outside assistance and their ability to cope with shocks remains limited. School closures have created a vacuum in education delivery and school-aged children have struggled to receive education services remotely.

Socioeconomic impacts of COVID-19 in four African countries

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and the attempts to limit its spread have resulted in profound economic impacts, and a significant contraction in the global economy is expected. This paper provides some of the first evidence on the socioeconomic impacts of and responses to the pandemic among households and individuals in Sub-Saharan Africa. To do so, reduced-form econometric methods are applied to longitudinal household survey data from Ethiopia, Malawi, Nigeria, and Uganda-originating from the pre-COVID-19 face-to-face household surveys and from the novel phone surveys that are being implemented during the pandemic. The headline findings are fourfold. First, although false beliefs about COVID-19 remain prevalent, government action to limit the spread of the disease is associated with greater individual knowledge of the disease and increased uptake of precautionary measures. Second, 256 million individuals-77 percent of the population in the four countries-are estimated to live in households that have lost income due to the pandemic. Third, attempts to cope with this loss are exacerbated by the inability to access medicine and staple foods among 20 to 25 percent of the households in each country, and food insecurity is disproportionately borne by households that were already impoverished prior to the pandemic. Fourth, student-teacher contact has dropped from a pre-COVID-19 rate of 96 percent to just 17 percent among households with school-age children. These findings can help inform decisions by governments and international organizations on measures to mitigate the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and reveal the need for continued monitoring.