UNICEF Pacific’s Chief of Solomon Islands Field Office, Dr. Zelalem Taffesse speaking with the Government Statistician Douglas Kimi after the presentation.
The National Statistics Office has met with donor partners to discuss possible partnerships towards the 2003/24 Household Income Expenditure Survey, HIES, where preparatory work is expected to begin later this year.
The Government through the Ministry of National Planning and Development Coordination (MNPDC) coordinated the meeting chaired by Mr Roy Mae, Deputy Secretary, MNPDC. The Government Statistician Douglas Kimi with a team from the NSO made a presentation to the donors at the Heritage Park Hotel on Wednesday 15th June 2022 about the project.
Donor and development partners in the country including UNICEF, Australia DFAT, Government of Japan and JICA, New Zealand High Commission, Asian Development Bank, UN Capital Development Fund, United Nations, US Embassy attended the presentation with others joining in by zoom.
The proposed total funding required for the HIES project over 2.5 years (2022-2024) is around 3.8 million US dollars.
The Government of Solomon Islands, through the NSO development budget annual ceiling, plans to meet about 27% of the total amount which is around 1 million US dollars, while the Development partners are expected to provide the additional 73% of the total amount which is around 2.8 million dollars.
Mr Kimi explained the primary objective of the survey is to update the weights of the current basket of commodities of the Consumer Price Index (CPI) as to capture the changing behavior of households and also modernize the official measure of inflation.
“The HIES is also a key data source for updating the country’s national accounts estimates, especially the household final consumption expenditure and informal sector components of the GDP”, he said.
A donor partner asking a question after the presentation.
Mr Kimi highlighted that it is timely that the current poverty incidence be updated with new data from the 2023/24 HIES.
“The HIES data is the source of the country’s official poverty indicators and is a requirement of the Sustainable Development Goal 1.”
The development partners asked questions about the survey after the presentation and reassured the NSO of the importance of the HIES and their consideration towards supporting the HIES project.
UNICEF Pacific’s Chief of Solomon Islands Field Office, Dr. Zelalem Taffesse said they will contact NSO within the coming days to further explore the types of support that can be provided.
“Thank you very much for the presentation. We will be contacting you soon to further discuss our support.”