[Antigua and Barbuda] Poverty Assessment survey extended

from The Antigua Sun

Officials heading the country’s Survey of Living Condition/Country Poverty Assessment have indicated that the process will continue into March.

Communications officer within the Ministry of Housing, Culture & Social Transformation, Collin Jno-Finn, said the National Assessment Team (NAT) was hoping to wrap up all field exercises at the end of February.

According to a press release, the projected dates have changed due to the extension of field activities.

“Since our last media drive the responses from the public have been overwhelming, however since then, field evaluators have received several notices of cancelled and rescheduled appointments, which have left us with no choice but to extend into March.”

Jno-Finn said he did not foresee that this would affect the final outcome of the results of the survey, but instead serve to greatly improve the overall quality of the exercise.

“The community sessions are coming along quite well but we would appeal to some communities to lend their support to the exercise as this will benefit the future development of residents,” he said

“In the initial stages we had some low responses and reports indicate that we have not yet created a research culture and some persons are afraid to divulge personal information. Nevertheless, since our request to increase public awareness to the media it has been quite helpful and persons have a better understanding and appreciation of the survey,” Jno-Finn noted.

The entire process comprised four parts namely; Analysis of the macro-economic context & environment, Survey of Living Conditions & Household Budgetary Survey, Participatory Poverty Assessment (community group sessions) & Institutional Assessment

For the Household Budgetary Survey some 1,800 household from across the country were selected from the upper, middle and lower income brackets.