The World Bank Africa Region

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The World Bank - Africa Region
Africa Household Survey Databank
Antoine Simonpietri - Pascal Heus
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Household Surveys Population Census

• Why do we need surveys?
• Study and monitor poverty
• Evaluate impact of policies
• Plan government services
• Produce country indicators
• Who are the users?
• Country
• International Organizations
• Researchers

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The role of the Databank

• Guarantee data availability and preservation
• Develop common infrastructure
• Promote dissemination and use of the data
• Improve communication between the data
  producer and data consumer
• Country capacity building

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Main Issues

• Data collection Where do we find the data and
  documentation?
• Preservation and storage How do we centralize
  and archive the information?
• Dissemination How can we improve the use of the
  data?
• Capacity Building How do we transfer knowledge
  to the country?

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Data Collection Issues

• List of surveys What? Where? Who? ? ASK THE
  COUNTRY NSO / WORLD BANK
• Availability Storage condition, availability,
  medium? ? PAPER, ELECTRONIC FILES, FORMATS,
  LOST
• Collecting How to find the information? ?
  MISSIONS TO COUNTRY NSO
• Completeness Is all the information
  available? ? DATA, REPORTS, MANUALS,
  QUESTIONNAIRES

WORK WITH THE COUNTRY NSO!
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Data Archive Issues

• Building No standard solution exists. ?
  IMPLEMENT CUSTOMIZED APPLICATION
• Standard format Which file format should we
  use? ? MS-ACCESS DATABASE , PDF DOCUMENTS
• Quality How can we improve data quality? ?
  CHECK DATA SETS (LABELS, CONSISTENCY) ? PROVIDE
  STANDARD FRAMEWORK ? TRAINING

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Data Dissemination Issues

• Clients Who are the end users. ? COUNTRY,
  INTERNATIONAL ORG., RESEARCH
• Dissemination formats Which medium or channel
  should we use? ? CD-ROMS, WORLD WIDE WEB
• Marketing How do we promote the existence and
  availability? ? SEARCH ENGINES, BROCHURES,
  MAILING LISTS
• Country policies Data are usually not public
  domain. ? ADVOCATE A MORE OPEN POLICY

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Capacity Building Issues

• Transfer the knowledge How do we provide the
  country with the capacity? ? TRAINING, REGIONAL
  WORKSHOPS
• Transfer the technology How de we improve the
  infrastructure? ? COUNTRY DATABANK (2001)

THIS IS THE KEY!The knowledge is in the country
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Main Issues Revisited

• Data collection Where do we find the data and
  documentation? ? WORK WITH THE COUNTRY NSO
• Preservation and storage How do we centralize
  and archive the information? ? STANDARDIZED
  INFRASTRUTURE
• Dissemination How can we improve the use of the
  data? ? WEB, CD-ROM, MARKETING
• Capacity Building How do we transfer knowledge
  to the country? ? WORKSHOPS, COUNTRY DATABANK

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Key Differences

• Environment Poor infrastructure, working
  conditions No international network Outdated
  equipment Socio-economic and political situation
• Statistics Data / Documentation
  availability Data quality Dissemination policy
• Technology No standard software Develop
  communication channels

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Databank Information Structure
METADATA
Surveys
MS-ACCESS
Documentation
Data Sets
FILES
RAW
SPSS, SAS, Stata, Ascii,... XML? Other?
Word, Excel, Scanned (TIF),... PDF
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Databank Management Tools
SURVEY NAVIGATOR Background infos
MethodologySamplingData CollectionContent,
Topics, VariablesData SetContacts...
DOCUMENT NAVIGATOR TitleAuthorsAsbtractPubli
cation DateSourceCategoriesScanning...
DDI / XML Compliant
Dublin Core Compliant
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Databank Dissemination Tools
WEB SITE Overview Survey Navigator Document
NavigatorSearch Engines CD-ROM LibraryNSO
Contacts List
SDAP CD-ROMS ArchiveEasy to
ProduceInexpensiveSurvey Data
DocumentationManual in English / French...
Int. Organizations, researchersIntranet /
InternetMetadata, documentation
Country, remote usersLow or no connectivity Full
Data dissemination
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Databank Status

• Surveys ? 316 catalogued ? 108 with complete
  data and documentation
• Documents ? 2,754 documents (survey,
  references,) ? 85 available in PDF
• Web site ? 300 Visitors / day, 150,000 hits /
  month
• CD-ROMs ? 62 produced, 17 duplicated in large
  quantities
• Capacity Building ? 3 Regional workshops (35
  participants total) ? Several training session
  in Washington, DC
• Storage ? 13 Gb, 13,500 Files

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Ongoing Developments

• Country Databank - Pilot in Burkina, Senegal in
  2001
• Navigator tools - Merge existing products -
  Data Set Navigator (software?) - CD-ROM
  management - Multiple archive centers
  (sync,web) - Web publication tools - Runtime
  version for CDs - New functionalities, more XML
  compliant
• Web site - New Navigator interface - Country
  page - Web administration tools (Country World
  Bank)
• Data Quality - Define Framework (Stockholm,
  LEG,...)

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Survey Navigator
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Document Navigator
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Web Site
Http//www.worldbank.org/afr/poverty AFRDatabank_at_w
orldbank.org
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The Survey Data Analysis Package
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The World Bank - Africa Region
Africa Household Survey Databank
Antoine Simonpietri - Pascal Heus