NSA spends N$130m on household data collection

THE Namibia Statistics Agency (NSA) spent close to N$130 million on the data collection phase of the 2025/26 Namibia Household Income and Expenditure Survey, which ended on 22 April.

This was revealed in a statement issued yesterday by NSA chief executive Alex Shimuafeni, who says the exercise covered 12 months of field operations across Namibia’s 14 regions.

“Of this (N$129.4 million), N$38.6 million was used for the remuneration of the field staff over 12 months and four-week training allowances for the 237 field staff prior to the data collection exercise,” he says.

The survey employed 153 field staff, of which 51 were team supervisors and 102 were interviewers, while 84 people were on standby.

Continuing the breakdown, Shimuafeni says N$32 million was used to purchase 46 vehicles for the survey, instead of renting the vehicles for 12 months.

“The remaining funds supported the remuneration of office-based project staff for software development, data processing, etc.; procurement of survey materials and field staff uniforms; printing of survey instruments (daily record books for the capturing households’ daily consumption), vehicle running costs, publicity activities, including on both TV and radio, and information technology hardware and software,” he says.

According to the NSA, the survey covered a representative sample of 11 016 households across 918 primary sampling units with the aim of accounting for seasonal variation in household expenditure and consumption.

The 2025/26 survey data collection built on the successful Pilot Survey conducted from 30 September to 20 October 2024 in the Erongo, Hardap, Kavango West, Khomas, Kunene, Omaheke, Omusati, and Zambezi regions.

“The pilot phase was critical in testing systems, methodologies, digital tools, and operational readiness to ensure a smooth rollout of the main survey,” the NSA says.

As Namibia’s primary source of household income and expenditure data, the survey provides essential information for measuring poverty and inequality, understanding living conditions, and supporting economic and policy analysis.

The survey contributes to the compilation of national accounts, the rebasing of the consumer price index, and inflation measurement.

Through this survey, the NSA produces key development indicators that support evidence-based policy making,

monitoring and evaluation of national development, and the review of the national basket of goods and services used to measure price changes in the economy.

“The successful completion of the fieldwork demonstrates the NSA’s growing institutional capacity in executing complex nationwide statistical operations,” Shimuafeni says.

He says with the conclusion of the data collection phase, the NSA has now entered the next phase of the project, which includes data processing, validation, and statistical analysis for final outputs.

The final report on the survey is expected to be published by the end of March 2027, after which the NSA will implement a structured dissemination programme to share the results with the nation through statistical reports, media engagements, stakeholder briefings, publications, and digital platforms.

The agency assures all respondents that their information remains strictly confidential and protected under the Statistics Act (Act No. 9 of 2011) and will only be used for statistical purposes as aggregated and anonymised data.
– email: matthew@namibian.com.na

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