Timor-Leste experienced a fundamental social and economic upheaval after its people voted for independence from Indonesia in a referendum in August 1999. Population was displaced, and public and private infrastructure was destroyed or rendered inoperable. Soon after the violence ceased, the country began rebuilding itself with the support from UN agencies, the international donor community and NGOs. The government laid out a National Development Plan (NDP) with two central goals: to promote rapid, equitable and sustainable economic growth and to reduce poverty. Formulating a national plan and poverty reduction strategy required data on poverty and living standards, and given the profound changes experienced, new data collection had to be undertaken to accurately assess the living conditions in the country. The Planning Commission of the Timor-Leste Transitional Authority undertook a Poverty Assessment Project along with the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, the United Nations Development Programme and the Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA). This project comprised three data collection activities on different aspects of living standards, which taken together, provide a comprehensive picture of well-being in Timor-Leste. The first component was the Suco Survey, which is a census of all 498 sucos (villages) in the country. It provides an inventory of existing social and physical infrastructure and of the economic characteristics of each suco, in addition to aldeia (hamlet) level population figures. It was carried out between February and April 2001. A second element was the Timor-Leste Living Standards Measurement Survey (TLSS). This is a household survey with a nationally representative sample of 1,800 families from 100 sucos. It was designed to diagnose the extent, nature and causes of poverty, and to analyze policy options facing the country. It assembles comprehensive information on household demographics, housing and assets, household expenditures and some components of income, agriculture, labor market data, basic health and education, subjective perceptions of poverty and social capital. Data collection was undertaken between end August and November 2001. The final component was the Participatory Potential Assessment (PPA), which is a qualitative community survey in 48 aldeias in the 13 districts of the country to take stock of their assets, skills and strengths, identify the main challenges and priorities, and formulate strategies for tackling these within their communities. It was completed between November 2001 and January 2002.

Timor-Leste experienced a fundamental social and economic upheaval after its people voted for independence from Indonesia in a referendum in August 1999. Population was displaced, and public and private infrastructure was destroyed or rendered inoperable. Soon after the violence ceased, the country began rebuilding itself with the support from UN agencies, the international donor community and NGOs. The government laid out a National Development Plan (NDP) with two central goals: to promote rapid, equitable and sustainable economic growth and to reduce poverty.

Formulating a national plan and poverty reduction strategy required data on poverty and living standards, and given the profound changes experienced, new data collection had to be undertaken to accurately assess the living conditions in the country. The Planning Commission of the Timor-Leste Transitional Authority undertook a Poverty Assessment Project along with the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, the United Nations Development Programme and the Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA).

This project comprised three data collection activities on different aspects of living standards, which taken together, provide a comprehensive picture of well-being in Timor-Leste. The first component was the Suco Survey, which is a census of all 498 sucos (villages) in the country. It provides an inventory of existing social and physical infrastructure and of the economic characteristics of each suco, in addition to aldeia (hamlet) level population figures. It was carried out between February and April 2001.

A second element was the Timor-Leste Living Standards Measurement Survey (TLSS). This is a household survey with a nationally representative sample of 1,800 families from 100 sucos. It was designed to diagnose the extent, nature and causes of poverty, and to analyze policy options facing the country. It assembles comprehensive information on household demographics, housing and assets, household expenditures and some components of income, agriculture, labor market data, basic health and education, subjective perceptions of poverty and social capital.

Data collection was undertaken between end August and November 2001.

The final component was the Participatory Potential Assessment (PPA), which is a qualitative community survey in 48 aldeias in the 13 districts of the country to take stock of their assets, skills and strengths, identify the main challenges and priorities, and formulate strategies for tackling these within their communities. It was completed between November 2001 and January 2002.

Abstract

Timor-Leste experienced a fundamental social and economic upheaval after its people voted for independence from Indonesia in a referendum in August 1999. Population was displaced, and public and private infrastructure was destroyed or rendered inoperable. Soon after the violence ceased, the country began rebuilding itself with the support from UN agencies, the international donor community and NGOs. The government laid out a National Development Plan (NDP) with two central goals: to promote rapid, equitable and sustainable economic growth and to reduce poverty.

Formulating a national plan and poverty reduction strategy required data on poverty and living standards, and given the profound changes experienced, new data collection had to be undertaken to accurately assess the living conditions in the country. The Planning Commission of the Timor-Leste Transitional Authority undertook a Poverty Assessment Project along with the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, the United Nations Development Programme and the Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA).

This project comprised three data collection activities on different aspects of living standards, which taken together, provide a comprehensive picture of well-being in Timor-Leste. The first component was the Suco Survey, which is a census of all 498 sucos (villages) in the country. It provides an inventory of existing social and physical infrastructure and of the economic characteristics of each suco, in addition to aldeia (hamlet) level population figures. It was carried out between February and April 2001.

A second element was the Timor-Leste Living Standards Measurement Survey (TLSS). This is a household survey with a nationally representative sample of 1,800 families from 100 sucos. It was designed to diagnose the extent, nature and causes of poverty, and to analyze policy options facing the country. It assembles comprehensive information on household demographics, housing and assets, household expenditures and some components of income, agriculture, labor market data, basic health and education, subjective perceptions of poverty and social capital.

Data collection was undertaken between end August and November 2001.

The final component was the Participatory Potential Assessment (PPA), which is a qualitative community survey in 48 aldeias in the 13 districts of the country to take stock of their assets, skills and strengths, identify the main challenges and priorities, and formulate strategies for tackling these within their communities. It was completed between November 2001 and January 2002.

Geographic coverage

National coverage. Domains: Urban/rural; Agro-ecological zones (Highlands, Lowlands, Western Region, Eastern Region, Central Region)

Kind of data

Sample survey data [ssd]

Sampling procedure

SAMPLE SIZE AND ANALYTIC DOMAINS

A survey relies on identifying a subgroup of a population that is representative both for the underlying population and for specific analytical domains of interest. The main objective of the TLSS is to derive a poverty profile for the country and salient population groups. The fundamental analytic domains identified are the Major Urban Centers (Dili and Baucau), the Other Urban Centers and the Rural Areas. The survey represents certain important sub-divisions of the Rural Areas, namely two major agro-ecologic zones (Lowlands and Highlands) and three broad geographic regions (West, Center and East). In addition to these domains, we can separate landlocked sucos (Inland) from those with sea access (Coast), and generate categories merging rural and urban strata along the geographic, altitude, and sea access dimensions. However, the TLSS does not provide detailed indicators for narrow geographic areas, such as postos or even districts. [Note: Timor-Leste is divided into 13 major units called districts. These are further subdivided into 67 postos (subdistricts), 498 sucos (villages) and 2,336 aldeias (sub-villages). The administrative structure is uniform throughout the country, including rural and urban areas.]

The survey has a sample size of 1,800 households, or about one percent of the total number of households in Timor-Leste. The experience of Living Standards Measurement Surveys in many countries - most of them substantially larger than Timor-Leste - has shown that samples of that size are sufficient for the requirements of a poverty assessment.

The survey domains were defined as follows. The Urban Area is divided into the Major Urban Centers (the 31 sucos in Dili and the 6 sucos in Baucau) and the Other Urban Centers (the remaining 34 urban sucos outside Dili and Baucau). The rest of the country (427 sucos in total) comprises the Rural Area. The grouping of sucos into urban and rural areas is based on the Indonesian classification. In addition, we separated rural sucos both by agro-ecological zones and geographic areas. With the help of the Geographic Information System developed at the Department of Agriculture, sucos were subsequently qualified as belonging to the Highlands or the Lowlands depending on the share of their surface above and below the 500 m level curve. The three westernmost districts (Oecussi, Bobonaro and Cova Lima) constitute the Western Region, the three easternmost districts (Baucau, Lautem and Viqueque) the Eastern Region, and the remaining seven districts (Aileu, Ainaro, Dili, Ermera, Liquica, Manufahi and Manatuto) belong to the Central Region.

SAMPLING STRATA AND SAMPLE ALLOCATION

Our next step was to ensure that each analytical domain contained a sufficient number of households. Assuming a uniform sampling fraction of approximately 1/100, a non-stratified 1,800-household sample would contain around 240 Major Urban households and 170 Other Urban households -too few to sustain representative and significant analyses. We therefore stratified the sample to separate the two urban areas from the rural areas. The rural strata were large enough so that its implicit stratification along agro-ecological and geographical dimensions was sufficient to ensure that these dimensions were represented proportionally to their share of the population. The final sample design by strata was as follows: 450 households in the Major Urban Centers (378 in Dili and 72 in Baucau), 252 households in the Other Urban Centers and 1,098 households in the Rural Areas.

SAMPLING STRATEGY

The sampling of households in each stratum, with the exception of Urban Dili, followed a 3-stage procedure. In the first stage, a certain number of sucos were selected with probability proportional to size (PPS). Hence 4 sucos were selected in Urban Baucau, 14 in Other Urban Centers and 61 in the Rural Areas. In the second stage, 3 aldeias in each suco were selected, again with probability proportional to size (PPS). In the third stage, 6 households were selected in each aldeia with equal probability (EP). This implies that the sample is approximately selfweighted within the stratum: all households in the stratum had the same chance of being visited by the survey.

A simpler and more efficient 2-stage process was used for Urban Dili. In the first stage, 63 aldeias were selected with PPS and in the second stage 6 households with equal probability in each aldeia (for a total sample of 378 households). This procedure reduces sampling errors since the sample will be spread more than with the standard 3-stage process, but it can only be applied to Urban Dili as only there it was possible to sort the selected aldeias into groups of 3 aldeias located in close proximity of each other.

HOUSEHOLD LISTING

The final sampling stage requires choosing a certain number of households at random with equal probability in each of the aldeias selected by the previous sampling stages. This requires establishing the complete inventory of all households in these aldeias - a field task known as the household listing operation. The household listing operation also acquires importance as a benchmark for assessing the quality of the population data collected by the Suco Survey, which was conducted in February-March 2001. At that time, the number of households currently living in each aldeia was asked from the suco and aldeia chiefs, but there are reasons to suspect that these figures are biased. Specifically, certain suco and aldeia chiefs may have answered about households belonging, rather than currently living, in the aldeias, whereas others may have faced perverse incentives to report figures different from the actual ones. These biases are believed to be more serious in Dili than in the rest of the country.

Two operational approaches were considered for the household listing. One is the classical doorto-door (DTD) method that is generally used in most countries for this kind of operations. The second approach - which is specific of Timor-Leste - depends on the lists of families that are kept by most suco and aldeia chiefs in their offices. The prior-list-dependent (PLD) method is much faster, since it can be completed by a single enumerator in each aldeia, working most of the time in the premises of the suco or aldeia chief; however, it can be prone to biases depending on the accuracy and timeliness of the family lists.

After extensive empirical testing of the weaknesses and strengths of the two alternatives, we decided to use the DTD method in Dili and an improved version of the PLD method elsewhere. The improvements introduced to the PLD consisted in clarifying the concept of a household "currently living in the aldeia", both by intensive training and supervision of the enumerators and by making its meaning explicit in the form's wording (it means that the household members are regularly eating and sleeping in the aldeia at the time of the operation). In addition,