As a legacy of conflict and political insecurity, Somalia currently lacks reliable macro and socio-economic data and therefore making evidence-based policy difficult in terms of proper planning of the country’s economic recovery and development. However, smart phone technologies can play an important role in the rebuilding of the country’s vital databases, such as those of food consumption and expenditure. For example, World Bank has recently supported an innovative high-frequency survey initiative to establish statistical baselines effectively.
Macro and Socio-economic
August, 2016
“The initiative aims to enable policy-makers to improve poverty reduction strategies and make informed investments by identifying drivers of poverty at the household-level.”
Although useful, the effort has not been repeated beyond the initial baseline survey and therefore provides a single snapshot picture of the situation, as opposed to repeated survey which can be used to monitor and evaluate change in household circumstances over time. This is very important given the rapidly improving security and economic environment which are likely to affect significantly household income and therefore consumption in the future.
Agribusiness Solutions Hub plans to adopt a similar approach to collect high quality longitudinal data on household expenditure and incomes to fill this important gap.
