The Samoa Bureau of Statistics in partnership with the Ministry of Finance, and the UNDP Samoa conducted an integrated data collection task for the following major surveys which commenced on the 24th August and was completed on the 31st October, 2020.
- The Population and Housing Census (PHC) household listing and mapping update in preparation for the PHC in November 2021
and preparation of the National Identification project. - Distribution of the Government Stimulus Package of ST50.00 per person.
- The Socio-Economic Impact Assessment of the COVID 19 Survey.
The commencement of the above survey started on the 24th August, 2020 and was completed on the 31st October, 2020.
For the Population and Housing Census activity, this is the usual practice implemented by the Bureau, one year before any Population and Housing Census in order to get the total number of people and household in the country to make preparations before the actual census enumeration.
The PHC is conducted every five years and the latest PHC was in 2016. The information from this activity will also assist with the National Identification project.
As the PHC is mandated to enumerate all persons in the country, the Committee for the Government Stimulus Package requested to integrate its activity with the PHC fieldwork. The members of the Government Stimulus Package included the Ministry of Finance,
Ministry of Communication and Information Technology, Office of the Electoral Commission, Ministry of Women Community and Social Development, Ministry of Police and Prison, Ministry of Health, Ministry of Education and the Office of the Attorney General.
Another important activity which was also integrated to the PHC was the collection of information from the public on the impacts of the COVID 19 via the Socio-Economic Impact Assessment Survey in collaboration with UNDP Samoa.
Around 300 workers were hired to help with the implementation of this integrated project.
The vehicles were kindly provided by the Ministry of Finance, Central Bank of Samoa, Samoa International Finance Authority, Development Bank of Samoa, Samoa Tourism Authority, Ministry of Commerce Industry and Labor, Ministry of Justice, Courts and Administration, while other Government Ministries contributed via the provision of cashiers to assist with the financial distributions.
The Bureau also organized three fixed sites namely the EFKS Youth Hall Mulinuu, the TATTE Convention Centre Sogi in Upolu Island and the Apita o Pisaga Hall in Savaii every Saturdays during the data collection period for the referrals of individual members of households who were not present at their households during the initial visit. The purpose was to ensure that all household information was collected and finalized and also to disseminate the $50 tala per person for all households as part of the Stimulus assistance provided by the Government.
The scope of the fieldwork covered two months and one week (Aug 24th-Ocotber 31st, 2020). The status quo of the activity is that the Bureau is still working on data cleaning, editing, analysis and other processes from all the three activities before the final result is released by January 2021.
