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back to Handbook Chapter 9

Chapter 9: Quality Assurance, Monitoring, Evaluation, and Risk Management

Zambia

The first level of supervision was provided by the supervisors. The supervisors were responsible for closely monitoring the work of the teams to ensure that all households were visited, all respondents were contacted, and all procedures were accurately implemented. Each supervisor had about six enumerators and conducted re-interviews of five selected households in each Enumeration Area (EA) assigned to them. Further, the supervisor reviewed the questionnaires after receiving the work from their enumerators using the review report on the supervisor menu. The report showed the name of the enumerator, EA number assigned to them, average interview time, total population enumerated, number of completed and non-contacts households among other key performance indicators. The supervisors provided feedback to the enumerators based on the reports.

At national and subnational level, the census monitoring dashboard was key in monitoring the data collection. The dashboard was a web-based information management tool used to display key performance indicators for real time tracking of fieldwork progress. Developed with technical assistance from UNECA’s African Centre for Statistics (ACS), the dashboard presented key indicators in interactive charts and graphs to allow users for a quick review and analysis. Access was given to selected census technical and administrative staff for them to view progress in their respective regions and be able to prioritise where to monitor. National Data Quality Monitors who operated at HQ provided feedback to the Provincial Census Officers as well as the District Census Coordinators. Population projections were included in the dashboard for benchmarking the progress of enumeration. Further, National Data Quality Officers conducted field visits to their assigned region to provide feedback to the enumerators. The census dashboard helped to target certain areas which had low performance indicators.

For enumerators that reported to have completed enumeration, the GIS were checking the coverage of the EA before certifying the completion of work. Feedback was given to the enumerators on structures observed without markers.

Tanzania

Quality control is an essential component of the census undertaking. Quality control standards and procedures were developed and observed throughout all steps of the census undertaking to ensure collection of quality data. All supervisors and coordinators were trained on quality control standards and procedures during training sessions of the census.

At pre-enumeration stage, planning was well organised; there were well designed census questionnaires and other related documents (manuals, control forms etc.). Also, on census mapping, supervisors assessed the work done by Field Assistants on delineation. In order to increase the quality, quality control is an essential component of the census undertaking. Quality control standards and procedures were developed and observed throughout all steps of the census undertaking to ensure collection of quality data. All supervisors and coordinators were trained on quality control standards and procedures during training sessions of the census.

At pre-enumeration stage, planning was well organised; there were well designed census questionnaires and other related documents (manuals, control forms etc.). Also, on census mapping, supervisors assessed the work done by Field Assistants on delineation. In order to increase the quality and the accuracy of the maps, Global Positioning Systems (GPSs) were used.

During the designing of the application, programmers used the specifications developed by the subject matter specialists. The specifications contained all instructions for the programmers to program the code from the questionnaire into CAPI, including response options, skip patterns, instructions to the interviewer, data validations, error messages, and output data format. For validation purposes, the subject matter developed validation checks, which include range checks, inconsistency checks and data completeness checks.

In order to ensure the quality of data collected, the electronic questionnaire was tested several times specifically in three stages: in-house testing, pre-testing and pilot.

During enumeration, quality control supervisors visited the households for spot checking and conducted back checks for selected households to ensure the quality of data collected. There was also the quality check program in the supervisor’s tablet, when enumerators sent data to the supervisor, the program runs a quality check to detect some issues.

Once the enumerators send the data, IT personnel situated in headquarters were able to check the data through the server. Data quality checks were done by using an edit specification document prepared by the subject matter specialists for majority of the questions to reduce content errors. Hard checks in CAPI were designed to reduce content errors.

These procedures were used to limit the number of errors during the whole process of the census exercise.

Namibia

In Namibia, to ensure the collection of reliable, quality, and timely data, a series of quality assurance activities were undertaken at different levels of monitoring. This was done by regional supervisors, national supervisors and managers. The monitoring teams were sent to regions at the beginning of the fieldwork to ensure that fieldwork began as planned and that all data collection procedures were followed as prescribed.

Monitoring teams followed randomly selected teams just to observe and ensure that they were introducing the objectives of the Census Mapping Project properly, and questions were asked as trained, including the translation of questions from English to vernacular languages. In doing so, remedial actions were undertaken to improve the quality of the data. Furthermore, a monitoring dashboard was also used by the regional and national supervisors to monitor real-time data as it came in and provided quality assurance on the data. During data quality assurance, if the data collected was wrongly entered or not as prescribed, that respective record was sent back to the mapper to fix the issues identified.

Kenya

A team of independent monitors/observers drawn from the United Nations (UN) Agencies, Civil Societies, National Statistical Offices (NSOs) in Africa, Academic Institutions, as well as National Gender and Equality Commission (NGEC) conducted an independent monitoring/observation of the census enumeration exercise between 21st and 31st August 2019. They monitored, reviewed, and gave feedback to Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) in real time about the census process. The monitors/observers were neutral witnesses of the enumeration process and did not interfere with the enumeration process in any way.

The monitors/observers were provided with unified observation tools and trained on the same methodology to properly appraise and report on several elements of data collection. They were distributed in all regions and covered the following aspects of the census:

  • Storage facilities in county statistics offices, advocacy materials, accessibility of EAs in the sub counties.

  • Identification of EA boundaries with focus on clarity of boundaries using EA maps and support from the village elders and assistant chiefs.

  • Pre-enumeration Household listing.

  • Enumeration materials and equipment, enumerator’s proficiency in data collection skills, and local languages.

After enumeration, the monitors prepared reports which were presented to the KNBS management.

Additionally, as part of quality assurance, supervisor module was included in the CAPI application in which the supervisors were able to select a few households randomly, conduct re-interview and generate a report. Any variations were addressed by the enumerators in discussion with the supervisors. A team of coordinators drawn from the various census committees were also deployed to undertake monitoring and observations of the enumeration process.

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