DILI, 04 march 2021 (TATOLI)- General Directorate of Statistics (GDS) and the Ministry for the Coordinator of Economic Affairs (MCAE) and the United Nation Development Programmed (UNDP) signed an agreement for a nation-wide survey initiative to understand the impact of such restriction on living standard and well being across the country, with the duration of two months starting from april 15 to jun this year.
“We signed the agreement to support the finance for the interviewer entities to expand the survey about the socio economic and basic staple food programs across the 12 municipalities including Oé-Cusse RAEOA under Covid-19 situation,” Director General of Statistic, Élias dos Santos said after the signing of the agreement at the DGE office, Caicoli Dili.
The first survey was conducted last year between June and September 2020, which surveyed 419 households, 99 businesses and 40 key informants in five municipalities. But the Government requested to expand the surveys. Thus, with the SEIA expands on previous cooperation, UNDP and DGE together, with UNDP supporting survey design and GDS staff and networks located in all municipalities collecting data from 5000 households and around 500 business in all municipalities.
The municipalities with the majority of populations are Dili, Baucau, Bobonaro and Ermera, the data collecting around 500, but for the other municipalities only obtained more than 300.
“We will make the selection to 3.000 interviewers in the agricultural census, of the number we will take 70 intervewers and 18 will be the located to municipalities to do the works in municipalities including RAEOA. Every municipalities will have 7 interviewers while 11 will be in Dili since Dili has majority of population,” he said.
At the same time the DGE and UNDP will conduct a training to all the interviewers starting on April 4 before the beginning of the activity.
Mr Santos added that, his part will inform to every villages authority whose areas are including in the surveys, to understand the benefits from the survey and when the data is presented it will help the Government to develop the population welfare.
The questions of the survey are related to the impact of the COVID-19 to the economy, health, education, employments and bossiness.
“With regards to Basic Basket food, we will question respondents about how they feel about the foods, whether it becomes benefits to them, so the questions are 15 questions,” he said.
At the same time, the Representative of the UNDP in Timor-Leste, Munkhtuya Altangerel said, the Sociology-Economy survey program is the United Nations efforts which involve the supports from the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and United Nation Development Program (UNDP) together with all the UN agencies collecting the data from 5000 households and 500 businesses small and medium business.
“We are very pleased to launch together with the DGS, the SEIA 2.0 survey, and the survey is the united nations efforts which involve the supports from the UNFPA and UNDP together with all the UN Agencies. This survey is very broad so we will cover all thirteen municipalities, many households by over 5000 and 500 bossiness smaller and medium,” Munckhtuya ALtangerel said.
According to Ms Altangerel, the survey will cost around $450.000, but the transfer is about $118.000 to train all the 70 interviewers and will utilize the tablet instead of paper.
Journalist: Florêncio Miranda Ximenes
Editor: Julia Chatarina