Public urged to cooperate with poverty assessment enumerators

Officials in the Central Planning Division are appealing with the public to co-operate with enumerators conducting surveys related to the Country Poverty Assessment (CPA).

The CPA is a comprehensive poverty study which a country conducts to determine the characteristics, extent, geographical concentration, severity and causes of poverty. The survey, which makes up the first of five phases of the CPA, began on March 13.

But chief statistician, Gatlin Roberts told the media on Wednesday that enumerators were experiencing several challenges in the field.

“Persons are seeing the questionnaire as being intrusive,” Roberts said. “We are trying to determine how persons live… what are the coping mechanisms used, how they provide for their families and so forth. It is called ‘a living condition and expenditure’ so there is a lot of emphasis on those two aspects.”

Roberts said that members of the public were also complaining about the length of the questionnaires and delayed answering questions by asking enumerators to come back at another time.

The chief statistician is appealing to the public to be patient and provide enumerators with accurate information.

“Respondents need to provide the information, especially truthful information,” Roberts said. “We’ve had it in the past where persons would have bragged that they gave information but it wasn’t truthful. It is not helping us because it will not provide a proper picture of St Vincent and the Grenadines.”

Laura Anthony-Browne, the director of planning said that they are sympathetic to persons who have to answer the questions. However, she explained that the information is necessary in order to craft the appropriate policy that can benefit the entire population.

She added that if the exact conditions under which people live are not known, then it is possible that the government could be designing programmes that are inappropriate for the people of St Vincent and the Grenadines.

“We are very much in sympathy with having to disclose your private information to an enumerator, but I want to assure the population that we are sworn to secrecy,” the director of planning said.

“We will not put out there to the public specific information on any person or persons.”

The CPA, which has a budget of $1.8 million, began in March and is expected to be completed in the first quarter of 2020.