New Partnership for Capacity Development in Household Surveys for Welfare Analysis

In low- and middle-income countries, household surveys are often the primary source of socio-economic data used by decision makers to make informed decisions and monitor national development plans and the SDGs. However, household surveys continue to suffer from low quality and limited cross-country comparability, and many countries lack the necessary resources and know-how to develop and maintain sustainable household survey systems.
 
The World Bank’s Center for Development Data (C4D2) in Rome and the Bank of Italy— with financial support by the Italian Agency for Development Cooperation and commitments from other Italian and African institutions—have launched a new initiative to address these issues.

The Partnership for Capacity Development in Household Surveys for Welfare Analysis aims to improve the quality and sustainability of national surveys by strengthening capacity in regional training centers in the collection, analysis, and use of household surveys and other microdata, as well as in the integration of household surveys with other data sources.
 
On Monday, nine partners signed an MoU describing the intent of the Partnership, at the Bank of Italy in Rome. The signatories included Haishan Fu (Director, Development Data Group, World Bank), Valeria Sannucci (Deputy Governor, Bank of Italy), Pietro Sebastiani (Director General for Cooperation and Development, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation of the Italian Republic), Laura Frigenti (Director, Italian Agency for Development Cooperation), Giorgio Alleva (President, Italian National Institute of Statistics), Stefano Vella (Research Manager, Italian National Institute of Health), Oliver Chinganya (Director, African Centre for Statistics of the UN Economic Commission for Africa), Frank Mkumbo (Rector, Eastern Africa Statistical Training Center), and Hugues Kouadio (Director, École Nationale Supérieure de Statistique et d’Économie Appliquée).
 
The Partnership will offer a biannual Training Week on household surveys and thematic workshops on specialized topics to be held in Italy in training facilities made available by the Bank of Italy, as well as regular short courses and seminars held at regional statistical training facilities to maximize outreach and impact. The first of a series of Training-of-Trainers (ToT) courses will be held in Fall 2017.
 
For more information, please contact: c4d2@worldbank.org.