The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) says it has commenced training of enumerators on Nigeria Living Standard Survey (NLSS) aimed at measuring the impacts of government’s policies on social welfare.

Statistician-General of the Federation and Chief Executive Officer of NBS, Prince Adeyemi Adeniran, stated this at the opening of the training for the bureau’s staff members nationwide, in Ibadan yesterday.

He said that the event would kick-start the training of enumerators who would implement and collect data on the survey.

According to him, the survey will be used to compute the poverty index and poverty rate in Nigeria.

Adeniran said that the last round of survey was conducted in 2018/2019 and the result released during the COVID-19 lockdown period.

He said that it provided the first official estimates of poverty and welfare in the country after almost a decade.

Adeniran urged the participants to be focused, as the training would help them in discharging their duties with due diligence.

“This training is one of the routine activities in our survey implementation.

“The programme was carefully and meticulously designed, with the aim of equipping the participants with survey and giving them a broader understanding of the concept of poverty and living standard measurement.

“This is deliberate and in line with management’s renewed resolve to enhance the technical capacity of staff members of the bureau,” he said.

The NBS boss said that the survey would be a follow-up to that of 2018/2019, adding that significant improvements had been made to the questionnaire for this round of survey.

“There is the addition of new modules and the removal of the community questionnaire from the last round, which made for a more streamlined instrument.

“Some of the new additions include: modules on remittances, migration and absentee household members, migration aspiration, social cohesion, petrol subsidy and subjective wellbeing,” Adeniran said.

A World Bank representative, Kelvin McGee, commended NBS and its staffers for the job of providing good, accurate and quality data.

He assured the bureau of the bank’s support throughout the period of the survey.

“NBS is more than equipped to handle the survey very successfully,” MCGee said.

Earlier in his address, Mr Ishaku Maigida, the Project Coordinator, Field Services and Methodology Department, NBS, said that the living standards survey generally measures living the conditions of the population of any country.

According to him, it also provides essential information for the production of a wide range of socio-economic and demographic indicators.

He listed the indicators as the benchmarking and monitoring of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), progress in population’s welfare and measuring the impacts of various government policies on households. (NAN)