National Bureau of Statistics is a provider of experience for the Turkmenistan State Statistical Committee

Between 23-24 May, the representative of the State Statistics Committee of Turkmenistan, Mrs. Aida Ishhanova, Deputy Head of the Department of Statistics and Household Analysis, was on a study visit to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) in order to obtain the experience and the best practices to be implemented in order to improve the statistical domain - the living standard of the population.

During the two days, Mrs Aida Ishhanova became acquainted with the national study, Household Budget Surveys (HBS), as well as the stages of organizing and managing the study.

Initially, a short history of household budget surveys in the Republic of Moldova was presented and how the transition from the Soviet method of interviewing the respondents to the current one,

The study visit continued with methodological explanations on the data collection tools within the HBS. Thus, information on coverage and the frequency of research, the reference period and the process of selecting respondents were presented.

An important topic was the data collection procedure, where the main problems faced by the interviewers during the collection of data in households.

Participants also discussed technical issues such as the processing of HBS data, which is accomplished through several steps: validation and compilation, quality assurance, accuracy, confidentiality and the format of their dissemination.

Subsequently, the representative of Turkmenistan has documented on the main objectives of the NBS, designed to further improve the HBS through the implementation of new data collection technologies, with the use of tablets.

The main objective of the Household Budget Survey is the multi-purpose determination of the living standard of the population in terms of income, expenditure, consumption, living conditions and other indicators. The information gathered in this research allows identifying the categories of households / disadvantaged people and analysing the impact of different programs and policies on the socio-economic situation of the population.