The present chapter provides an overview of the main procedures followed in the international Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) programme in the execution of large-scale
household and individual surveys. It provides an overview of the general content of the surveys, the sampling procedures, response rates and design effects, as well as a description of the
procedures and approaches followed for all the important survey components, from training to data processing and report writing. The chapter also contains a listing of the main lessons learned so far, from executing this survey programme.