Vanuatu Household Income & Expenditure Survey 2006 - Main Report
Foreword The 2006 Household Income and Expenditure Survey (HIES) was the first comprehensive undertaking conducted by the Vanuatu National Statistics Office (VNSO) to provide estimates of household income and expenditure at the provincial level. The 1985 HIES covered only the two urban centres, Port Vila and Luganville. The 1997 HIES covered the two urban centres and households within the provincial head quarters and nearby villages. Due to concerns about the quality of the expenditure information in the 1997 HIES it was of limited use. However, with lessons learnt from the two previous HIES survey, this survey made significant improvements in data collection based on a wider coverage of rural households within the islands and also had better response rates. |
I would like to thank the Vanuatu Government for initiating this project. My sincere thanks goes to the Australian Government through AusAID, the United States Government through the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) and the Millennium Challenge Account, Vanuatu (MCA) for their funding assistance for this project.
I would like also to convey my appreciation to a number of organisations and individuals who were instrumental in providing technical assistance for the HIES. Organisations like Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC) which provided assistance in the designing of the questionnaires and the sample selection methodologies. Individuals include Mr Leon Pietsch a private consultant from Australia, Mr Serevi Baledrokadroka from the Fiji Island Bureau of Statistics and Ms Kim Robertson for their invaluable technical assistance.
I wish to acknowledge the important contributions of VNSO staff in the successful conduct of the HIES and the completion of this HIES. Of note are Ms Alice Sami for her assistance in the compilation of this report; as well as Mr Pita Toa, the fourth Project Coordinator and Mr Harry Nalau, Deputy Project Coordinator for their dedication and perseverance over the entire period of the project. Sincere thanks are also extended to the provincial survey coordinators, supervisors and enumerators for working hard in the field collecting the required data.
But it is the members of the households who patiently completed the HIES questionnaires with the survey enumerators and provided all of the detailed information required over the two weeks` survey period who justifiably deserve the greatest vote of appreciation and thanks in the preparation of this report.
Finally but not the least, I would like to take this moment to dedicate this report to late Mr Peter Morris Jimmy, the second HIES Coordinator. This is to honour him for his final contribution to the work of statistics development in VNSO and to the development of the Nation as the HIES information will be invaluable for the benchmarking of the MCC infrastructure development projects in Vanuatu. |
Vanuatu Household Income & Expenditure Survey 2006 - Analysis
Preface This report on the estimation of Basic Needs Poverty Lines and the Incidence and Characteristics of Poverty in Vanuatu is the first of its kind. This detail and technical analysis from the 2006 Household Income and Expenditure Survey (HIES), is the second output from a series of analysis and outputs from the 2006 HIES. The report provides the estimates of national poverty lines. This paper also analyses the expenditure data to estimate the incidence of poverty through the use of food and basic needs poverty lines and comparing these with recorded levels of expenditure. It also provides an analysis of the broad |
characteristics of low-expenditure households in terms of their socioeconomic status, demographics and level of household access to basic services. Together with the poverty indicators these provide a good indication of which households are the most disadvantaged in Vanuatu, what common characteristics they might share and why they might be in this situation. Such information will be useful for government to define targeted policies and interventions to assist in alleviating poverty and hardship in Vanuatu.
I would like to sincerely thank the Asian Development Bank (ADB) for financing the technical support for this analysis. I would also like to thank the following organisations for co-financing the 2006 HIES survey which data was made available for this analysis: the Australian High Commission (AusAID), the Millennium Challenge Accounts (MCA), and the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC).
Many people contributed to this analysis in so many ways. I would like to sincerely express my gratitude to Mss Kim Robertson the ADB short-term consultant, her counterpart Mr Pita Toa and the NSO staff for this achievement. Summary information on this technical report can be obtain from “SUMMARY of Report on the Estimation on the Basic Need Poverty Line, and the Incidence and Characteristics of Poverty in Vanuatu”, however detail information on the demographic and socio-economic aspects of Vanuatu households can be found in “2006 Household Income and Expenditure Final Report”. |