Mozambique´s National Statistics Institute will make data more accurate and representative

A senior statistician at the National Statistics Institute in Mozambique says he expects the link with his institution to be a “wonderful collaboration” that will help WASHCost data to be officially accepted in Mozambique. WASHCost will be collecting data in 46 communities in five Provinces out of 10 Rural Provinces plus 22 peri-urban areas, conducting a minimum of 1,300 household surveys to find out more about the real costs of water and sanitation and linking that to the quality of services being provided. The purpose is to discover what drives the costs of WASH services and whether there is any link with the quality of the services that people actually receive.

Because the project cannot go everywhere, researchers need to ensure that the populations they examine represent a cross section of Mozambique society in rural and peri-urban areas. They will be supported by work from the National Census undertaken in 2007 and by results of a Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey which asked a sample of the population about water, sanitation and reproductive health, selected randomised ‘clusters’ of households in communities around the country.

Olímpio Miguel Zavale, a senior statistician from the National Statistics Institute of Mozambique, says that it is vital for WASHCost to work closely with experts from the bureau. “What is important is to ensure that the methodology you are developing is suitable for the national level. If it is like this we can accept that information as official. It is important to work together with our methodologists.WASHCost is going in that direction because it is working with us and trying to find information and use our experience. We are trying to mix our power to develop this. This will be a wonderful collaboration and we hope to have better results.”

André Uandela, Director of WASHCost Mozambique, said: “This will help to make our work more accurate and more representative. As far as possible, we plan to embed the principles of WASHCost in Mozambique institutions so that the lessons we can learn from WASHCost continue after the five year project is over. That is why we work closely with SINAS, the water and sanitation information system, and now with the statistics bureau.”

WASHCost is a five year project working in Mozambique, Burkina Faso, Ghana and in Andhra Pradesh, a state in India.