Statistics Sierra Leone (SSL) with support from the World Bank has on Monday June 8, 2020, commenced training of enumerators and supervisors for the Sierra Leone Covid-19 Impact Monitoring Survey (SL-CIMS), at its headquarters at A.J. Momoh Street in Freetown.
The survey which is being implemented by SSL and funded by the World Bank hopes to provide the Government of Sierra Leone and the International community with timely, policy-relevant information regarding knowledge of, the responses to and the socio-economic impacts of Covid-19 and related restrictions in Sierra Leone. In particular, the survey will give information to effectively design, target and evaluate the policy interventions envisaged under the Quick Action Economic Response Program (QAERP) to face the Covid-19 challenge.
The survey which will be conducted via mobile phone as opposed to the conventional face-to-face interview, will let enumerators call households and ask questions bearing on the impact which Covid-19 has had on livelihoods, and following the completion of each interview, each household will be compensated in kind, in the form of mobile airtime top up/credit.
The households to be interviewed were chosen through random sample of currently active mobile phone numbers from those that had been interviewed from the 2018 round of the Sierra Leone Integrated Household Survey (SLIHS).
In his keynote address at the opening of the training, the deputy Statistician General, Andrew Bob Johnny, said that the Covid-19 impact monitoring survey is a similar survey to the Annual Economic Survey of Enterprises (AESE), which was done using survey solutions.
He intimated all present that the enumerators who did very well during AESE are the ones that have been selected this time to work with Statistics Sierra Leone on the survey. He admonished all participants to uphold the personal integrity and also that of the institution, and warned that anyone who slightly falsifies data would be discovered and punished heavily.
The deputy Statistician General explained that all phone calls on the distributed phone lines would be registered and monitored. He further warned the participants that monitoring of field activities would be very vigorous, and any culprit caught, would forfeit their payment and be subsequently turned over to the police for criminal investigation.
After the launch, the first set of participants were trained how to use the survey equipment, which included a tablets and a phone in conjunction with the training manual. A general training was conducted and later followed by a hands-on training for 108 enumerators and 18 supervisors; amounting to a total of 126 who would conduct the survey, which will commence on Monday June 15, 2020, and will last for 19 days.
Also in attendance at the launch were the Director of Communication of SSL, Samuel Ansumana; the Technical Assistant to the Statistician General and his deputy, Dr Mohamed Korjie; the Director of National Accounts and Economic Statistics Division, Mwaluma Andrew Gegbe; and the Director of Demographic, Health and Social Statistics Division, Sonnia Jabbi and the Senior Human Resources Manager, Aboud John George.
By Sallieu Kanu
15/6/2020. ISSUE NO.: 7845