DEPARTMENT OF CENSUS & STATISTICSDEPARTMENT OF CENSUS & STATISTICSDEPARTMENT OF CENSUS & STATISTICS
Ministry of National Policies and Economic affairsMinistry of National Policies and Economic affairsMinistry of National Policies and Economic affairs
STATISTICAL NEWS LETTERSTATISTICAL NEWS LETTERSTATISTICAL NEWS LETTER
2ND ISSUE , 2015 ISSN 1800—3095
WORLD STATISTICS DAY CELEBRATIONS – 2015
General Assembly called on the member states to observe this day and or-
ganize activities with the aim of raising the level of awareness on the im-
portance of data and indicators in the life of communities. It further invited
the member states to rely on official statistics as a major source in formulat-
ing their policies and driving their investments in social, economic and en-
vironmental fields, and to activate the fundamental principles of official
statistics adopted by the UN General Assembly.
The Department of Census and Statistics (DCS) as the key institution of
the National
Statistical Sys-
tem organized
a number of
activities to
coincide with
the observanc-
es under the
theme “Better
data. Better
life”. The main
event, the Na-
tional Seminar
held on 20th
October 2015 amidst the participation of government, semi government
agencies, NGOs, UN agencies, researchers, civil societies, academics etc.
The Chief Guest of this event was Mr. Niroshan Perera,
Hon. State Minister of National Policies and Economic
Affairs. Many activities were included to create aware-
ness on importance of official statistics and their uses.
Presentation on role of the department, data produced
by the department etc. were made and the department e-
learning system and automated library system were also
promoted.
In addition to the national seminar, DCS has organized
many other activities including a Seminar for selected
GCE (A/L) students, Special assemblies on WSD in all
schools, Seminars at District Secretariats for district level
officials, Awareness Seminar for journalists and a special
event for DCS staff.
District Seminars
District seminars were conducted in each district except Colombo district
on 20th October 2015 to make awareness on official Statistics among gov-
ernment officials in the district administration system, students and teach-
ers from selected schools in the respective district.
The United Nations General Assembly, in
its 69th regular session held in New York City
in June 2015, adopted a resolution designating
20th October 2015 as World Statistics Day
(WSD), under the general theme “Better data.
Better lives”. In addition, the General Assem-
bly invited all member states to celebrate
World Statistics Day on 20th October every
five years. The adoption of this resolution
comes as recognition of the international com-
munity of the importance of statistical data in
formulating sustainable development strate-
gies, and monitoring progress made by coun-
tries towards achieving national and interna-
tional development goals; particularly that
related to Post-2015 sustainable development
agenda, namely, taking decisions and interven-
tions in relevant national development pro-
jects in a timely manner.
In its aforementioned resolution, the UN
Cont.
PAGE 2 2ND ISSUE , 2015
“Productivity is being able to do things that you were never able to do before”
The Department of Census
and Statistics introduced a new price
index called, Producer’s Price Index
(PPI) since the second quarter of
2015. The Producer’s Price Index
(PPI) measures the average change
over the time in the prices received
by domestic producers of goods and
services.
The more historic Consumer
Price Index addresses the price
changes from the point of view of the
consumers. The starting point of this
production and supply chain is the
production floor. Thus, the price
changes from the point of view of
producer are being considered
through PPI. The introduction of the
PPI in Sri Lanka provides a more
complete picture of price move-
ments and trends for making in-
formed decisions.
Further, this is an important
macroeconomic indicator. It serves
as an indicator of short term infla-
tionary trends and as a deflator of
economic series. It is also used in
productivity analysis, contract escala-
tion, business analysis and current
cost accounting etc.
The PPI covers the agricul-
ture, manufacturing and utility sec-
tors of the country. The prices of
agricultural products are collected
monthly by divisional secretariat lev-
el and the prices of manufacturing
goods are collected from the estab-
lishments with persons engaged size
of 25 and more from three provinces
namely, Western, Central and
Southern. Utility sector prices are
collected from the National Water
Supply and Drainage Board and Cey-
lon Electricity Board. The PPI has
been calculated from January, 2014
to September, 2015. The base year is
the fourth quarter of 2013.The
monthly Producer’s Price Index pub-
lishes five weeks after each quarter.
Movements of Monthly Producer’s Price Index, Jan. 2014 – Sep. 2015
(Base: 2013 Q4 = 100)
PRODUCER’S PRICE INDEX (PPI)
WORLD STATISTICS DAY CELEBRATIONS – 2015
Statistical Awareness Seminar for
students
Statistical awareness seminar for
G.C.E. (A/L) students from selected
schools was held with the participation
of about 100 students.
Seminar for journalists
A seminar for journalists was conduct-
ed with the participation of nearly 100
journalists. This seminar mainly fo-
cused on the enhancement of statistical
literacy among journalists. For this
purpose, several presentations related
to official statistics produced by the
DCS were made and special attention
was paid to enhance the knowledge of
journalists on proper interpretation of
statistical indicators.
School Awareness Campaign
An awareness campaign was held at all
the schools in the country to make
aware students and teachers on official
statistics and their uses. A poster and a
message on WSD were distributed
among all the schools, and arrange-
ments were made to display the poster
in the notice board and organized a
special assembly on 20th October
morning and read the WSD message
by the Principal. One of objectives of
this message was to convey a message
to the society on the importance of
providing accurate and reliable data to
the department.
Observance of WSD by DCS Staff
A special program was conducted tar-
geting the DCS staff who are responsi-
ble for the collection and analysis of
official statistics. Special lecture by a
renowned academic was organized to
highlight the importance of official
statistics and its uses for policy formu-
lation. Several recreational items to
showcase artistic talents of DCS staff
were also presented at the event.
PAGE 3 STATISTICAL NEWSLETTER
“Efficiency is doing things right; effectiveness is doing the right things”
SRI LANKA DEMOGRAPHIC AND HEALTH SURVEY - 2016
Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) in Sri Lanka are normally conducted by the Department of Census and Statistics once in every five years as per the re-quest made by the Ministry of Health in Sri Lanka. The objective of the Sri Lanka Demographic and Health Survey (SLDHS) is to provide data needed to monitor and evaluate the impact of pop-ulation, health and nutrition programs implemented by different government agencies. This will also cater to the needs of compilation of a number of Millennium Development Indicators. Since 1987, the Department of Census and Statistics (DCS) has been collecting data on fertility and determinants of fertility, family planning, fertility pref-erences, infant and child mortality, re-productive health, nutrition, anthropo-metric measurements and HIV/AIDS – related knowledge and attitudes. Tech-nical advices were obtained from the Macro International Agency for the 2006/7 DHS survey. The next DHS survey is planning to conduct in year 2016. This is the 5th survey of DHS se-ries in Sri Lanka. All the DHS surveys were funded by the World Bank.
Methodology
This survey covers the all districts in the country and the sample was spread geo-graphically in proportion to the popula-tion. The SLDHS used a stratified two-stage cluster sample design. The first stage involved selecting of 2500 enu-meration areas (clusters) randomly from the list of enumeration areas (EAs). An enumeration area (EA) is a subdivision
of a Grama Niladhari area, which con-sists of about 100 housing units in urban areas and about 80 units in rural or es-tate areas. Estimates are provided by National Level, Sector Level and Dis-trict Level. Second stage of selection involved the systematic sampling of 10 households listed in each enumeration area. All ever married women aged 15-49 years and their children below 5 years of age at the time of the survey were eligible to be interviewed. Survey questionnaire for this survey is designed with the cooperation of the Ministry of Health.
Fieldwork
Specially trained 30 field survey teams will be deployed for data collection of the next DHS survey. Each team com-prised of one female supervisor, four/five female interviewers, one field edi-tor, measurer (height and weight and GPS measurements) and field assistant. Team composition was depending on main speaking languages in the country namely Sinhala and Tamil. Teams had to reside in the districts temporarily during the survey period. Response rate of this survey needs to keep at over 98 percent since sample size needs to represent the whole country. Senior level technical staff of DCS is appointed to supervise teams methodically. Haemoglobin test-ing was carried out as part of the DHS survey first time in Sri Lanka in 2006/7 DHS survey and plan to continue for the next DHS survey too. In addition, an-other DCS staff attached to the head office were involved in other adminis-
trative and technical related activities to the survey.
It has been planned to use tablet com-puters for data collection first time in Sri Lanka for 2016 DHS survey and collect data from the field within 4-5 months period. It has been planned to use CAPI (Computer Assisted Personnel Inter-view) technique for field data collection first time in Sri Lanka in 2016. It is also planning to obtain technical assistance from ICF International which is the Global Technical Assistance Agency for DHS surveys. This new technology will be reduce data entry time substantially.
Data Processing and data dissemi-nation
Previous surveys were conducted using paper based questionnaires and data en-try was done centrally. Data processing was done using CSPro computer pack-age. Staff of the ICT division and subject matter staff worked together with Mac-ro International consultants to obtain the required tabulations.
Since data collection will be done using tablet computers for 2016 survey, data processing stage could be done immedi-ately after the data collection as there is no separate manual data entry stage. Therefore selected final tables could be produced within two months after data collection. The final report is expected to be published within six months after completion of data collection stage. It is expected to conduct a seminar on major findings before printing the final report.
An update of Sri Lanka’s poverty map based on the newly available 2012 CPH (Census of Population and Housing) and 2012/13 HIES (Household Income and Expenditure Survey) was published by DCS in September, 2014. This poverty map exercise is particularly timely because the new map provides valuable information on poverty in Northern and Eastern prov-inces, which were not covered in the previous map due to the lack of household survey and census data from these areas.
The estimated poverty rate at the DS division level ranges from 0.6 percent in Dehiwala (Colombo district) to 45.1 percent in Manmunai-west (Batticaloa district). Most of the DS divisions with the lowest estimated poverty rates, as expected, are reported from Colombo, the district with the lowest poverty rate.
For more information the detailed publication is having the following link.
http://www.statistics.gov.lk/poverty/SpatialDistributionOfPoverty2012_13.pdf
MEASURING AND MONITORING POVERTY IN SRI LANKA
SEVENTH MEETING OF HEADS OF SAARC STATISTICAL
ORGANIZATIONS - 23-24 JULY 2015
WE’RE NOW OPERATING
FROM
Department of Census and Statistics
No.306/71
Polduwa Road,
Battaramulla
Tel : +94 11 2147000, +94 11 2147050
E-mail : [email protected]
Publisher : Publications Division
Department of Census and Statistics
No.306/71
Polduwa Road,
Battaramulla
Phone : (++94) 0112 147488
Fax : (++94) 0112 877970
E-mail: [email protected]
WE’RE ON THE WEB
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The maiden conference of heads of the National Statistical Organizations (SAARCSTAT) of the countries of South Asia region was held in Calcutta, India in 2005 with the view of enhancing regional cooperation on Statistical affairs and has met six times to discuss regional matters of importance in the field of official statistics.
Meeting Venue and dates
First Kolkata, India. 26th -27th May 2005
Second Dhaka, Bangladesh. 17th April 2008
Third Paro, Bhutan. 18th -19th November 2010
Fourth Islamabad, Pakistan. 24th -25th October 2011
Fifth Maldives. 4th - 5th November 2012
Sixth Kathmandu, Nepal. 12th -13th June 2014.
Venues of previous SAARCSTAT meetings At the sixth meeting held in Kathmandu, Nepal in 2014, Sri Lanka was unanimously chosen to host the conference for 2015. According-ly, On behalf of the of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, Department of Census and Statistics (DCS) with the coordination of Ministry of Foreign Affairs organized the Seventh Meeting of Heads of SAARC Statistical Organisations (SAARCSTAT) which was held in Colombo on 23rd and 24th July 2015. The theme of the seventh meet-ing was ‘Education Statistics’ which focused on existing disparities among children in the SAARC region.
Delegates from SAARC countries; India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Ne-pal, Bhutan, Maldives and host country Sri Lanka and representatives
from SAARC Secretariat in Kathmandu, Nepal attended this meeting. Representatives from the SAARC Division of the Min-istry of Foreign Affairs and key local and foreign data users and representatives from several government institutions also attended the inauguration.
Dr. A.J. Satharasinghe, Director-General, Department of Census and Statistics, Sri Lanka delivered the welcome address at the inaugural session of the meeting. Key-note Address of the inaugural session was delivered by Prof. Kithsiri Liyanage, the then Secretary to the Ministry of Policy Planning, Economic Affairs, Child, Youth and Cultural Affairs. He, in his address stressed the important role played by sta-tistics in devising national plans for all sec-tors of the economies in all Member States including alleviation of poverty.
Ms. L. Savithri, Director, Economic, Trade and Finance Division, SAARC Secretariat addressing the gathering urged all Member States to ensure effective and timely implementation of the decisions of SAARCSTAT and also thanked the Government of Sri Lanka for hosting the Meet-ing and for making excellent arrangements for the same and for providing generous hospitality to all delegations.
Dr. A.J. Satharasinghe, Director General, Department of Census and Statistics, Sri Lanka and the Leader of the delegation of Sri Lanka was elected as the Chairperson of the Meeting by acclamation.