Rapid Welfare Monitoring Survey 2017

The 2009 census of dwellings, the most recent sampling frame available for Iraq, served as the sampling frame for the SWIFT survey. Given the large number of people displaced within the country since 2014, the survey was designed to capture a representative sample of internally displaced persons. Furthermore, given the prevalence of Syrian refugees in the Kurdistan region, the survey also sampled refugee households in Kurdistan. A socioeconomic survey of camp residents was conducted by CSO and KRSO in 2017 so to avoid duplication of effort, the camp residents were excluded from the SWIFT survey. Informal ad-hoc settlements that have been constructed since the last update of sampling frame were included in the survey through household listing operation in the sampled enumeration areas. The survey was designed to cover all governorates, including areas in Nineveh deemed safe for field visits.

The sampling design followed a nested logic. All households in the sample responded to a short questionnaire. The short form collected information on the following core non-monetary indicators of well-being: household roster, education attainment, labor market variables, dwelling characteristics, access to basic services, asset ownership, transfers and assistance (public and private), incidence of shocks, and subjective well-being. A random subset of the sampled households also responded to the complete list of questions on household expenditure. The full sample was designed to be representative for each governorate. The expenditure sub-sample was representation at the regional level, where each region comprises three to five governorates.

Within each governorate, the out-of-camp sample was selected in two stages as following. First, using the exhaustive list of Census Enumeration Areas as Primary Sampling Units (PSUs), between 60 to 150 EAs in each governorate was selected using Probability Proportional to Size (PPS) criteria, with the number of households in each area as the measure of size. Listing exercise was conducted in the selected areas to update the list of households. In the second stage, using households as secondary sampling units (SSUs), six households were selected in each cluster with equal probability from the post-listing sampling frame. The sample of households in the second stage was stratified by residence status. In selecting six households from a cluster, three each of IDP and non-IDP households were selected in the non-Kurdistan region. In the Kurdistan region, two each of IDP, non-IDP, and refugee households were selected. If an enumeration area in Kurdistan had fewer than two refugee or IDP households, the gap was filled by randomly selecting resident households from the same enumeration area. Likewise, if a PSU in the rest of Iraq had fewer than three IDP households, the shortfall was met by resident households to reach a total of 6 households per PSU.

Expenditure information was collected from a subsample of households from a subsample of enumeration areas. In Kurdistan, one household each of residents, IDPs, and refugees in a subset of clusters responded to the expenditure questions and in Rest of Iraq, one household each of residents and IDPs answered the expenditure questions.