A toolkit of practical guidance in conducting household income and expenditure surveys has been developed by the Pacific Community (SPC) for the region, supported by the World Bank.
SPC’s Statistics for Development Division and its expert contributors are sharing a Pacific HIES toolkit, with four new guidance notes available in a modular series of best-practice advice that aims to strengthen HIES-derived data and decision-making for Pacific Island countries and territories.
With HIES being the main (sometimes only) way in the Pacific to understand issues like poverty rates, food consumption and income inequality, the new notes are intended to provide national statistics offices with concrete, real-world guidance to support HIES implementation in a Pacific context.
The toolkit reflects that HIES are significant investments—usually only possible every five years—and face challenging risks of not producing the best, most comparable data in the most efficient way.
Three of the new notes provide core guidance for conducting a HIES: Planning for HIES; Fieldwork for HIES; and Processing for HIES. Part of a planned five-note series, ‘Analysis of a HIES’ and ‘Dissemination of HIES products’ are expected to be published later in 2025.
The fourth new note, Estimation of the Use Value of Durable Goods in Consumption Aggregates, provides detailed HIES-specific guidance, joining previously published notes in this vein on Imputation of housing rent, Processing of food data collected in HIES and Monetary poverty measurement.
Future modules in development will round out the series, providing high-level guidance from survey strategy to sampling, through to practical templates, training and supporting materials.
Ms Maria Musudroka, Manager of Methods and Processing with SPC’s Statistics for Development Division, says that the new toolkit is built on both in-house experience and regional collaboration.
“These guidance notes are the result of extensive collaboration and field experience by SPC experts working directly with national statistics offices across the region,” Ms Musudroka said.
“HIES provide vital data across critical areas, from CPI [Consumer Price Index] updates, national accounts, nutrition and food security, poverty measurement, and for cross-cutting indicators, particularly towards the SDGs [Sustainable Development Goals] and 2050 Strategy for the Blue Pacific Continent.
“Given the complexity of a typical HIES—often taking three years or more from planning through dissemination—this new toolkit aims to make the process more efficient, standardised and adaptable across different national contexts.”
Endorsed by the Pacific Statistics Methods Board, the toolkit is an output of the World Bank-funded PACSTAT project, fostering statistical innovation and capacity-building in the Pacific Islands.
The newly endorsed notes follow a recommendation made by the Methods Board in May 2024, where members called for a modular approach to guidance. Following that direction, SPC revised its advice into more accessible formats, with examples and easier-to-read layouts.
Regional development has seen contributions from national statistics offices in Fiji, Vanuatu, Samoa, Tonga, Tuvalu, Kiribati and the Cook Islands, as well as key partners like the World Bank, UNICEF and Stats NZ.
The toolkit is envisioned as a living set of documents, periodically updated to reflect methodological advancements, lessons learnt and evolving priorities in the Pacific. It is the result of collaborative work by SPC specialists Ms Musudroka, Mr Bertrand Buffiere, Mr Mike Sharp, Mr Mosese Qaloewai, Mr Oliver Menaouer, Mr Toga Raikoti, and consultants Ms Andrea Borlizzi and Mr Jean-Paul Zoyem.
Discover the Pacific HIES toolkit
For more information on this story, contact Mr Ben Campion, Communications Adviser, Statistics for Development Division, Pacific Community (SPC).
