The Liberia Institute of Statistics and GEO-Information Services (LISGIS) with support from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has conducted a 3-day validation on the Thematic Analysis of the Household Income and Expenditure Survey (HIES).

The HIES was conducted in 2016 covering the entire country, in an attempt to produce more accurate and reliable information for national accounting for GDP estimations, enhance price statistics production and agriculture sector monitoring, etc.

However, given the need to produce more data for monitoring the newly launched Pro-poor Agenda for Prosperity and Development (PAPD), the need to conduct an in-depth analysis in thematic areas such as health, demographic dynamics, education, agriculture and other aspects of human development was considered, given the richness of the dataset beyond the Statistical Abstract produced.

In addition, the idea was to also engender more gender specific issues in details in the reports to aid development planning.

The Validation Workshop held in Buchanan City, Grand Bassa County was designed for stakeholders in various thematic areas to be aware of methods and tools used to compute indicators as well as to gain knowledge on any related information that may be published and associated with their respective institutions.

It provided an opportunity for stakeholders to make inputs and also conduct checks and balances in the methods used to obtain facts and figures as well as their interpretations and relevance in relation to the PAPD and the SDGs.

A total of 52 participants of the National Statistical System as well as Consultants, Researchers and their Associates formed part of the exercise.