Measuring Living Standards within Cities, Durban 2015

The Durban data collection team initially consisted of 8 enumerators and 1 supervisor, but was later reduced to 4 enumerators and 1 supervisors. Although enumerators initially worked individually - to avoid attracting unnecessary attention - the approach was modified in favor of groups of two or more following an armed attack on the team.

The Durban survey fieldwork was done between February and July 2015. The extended duration of the fieldwork in Durban was largely the result of: (i) constraints in finding a greater number of interviewers with the aptitude to implement the relatively complex questionnaire; and (ii) security concerns in the field, which caused delays in accessing specific EAs.

Cases were assigned to interviewers using Survey Solutions. Interviewers were provided with both an electronic and hardcopy map, as well as a printed completion form, and could contact the listing manager through email, WhatsApp, or google hangouts if they were unable to find the assigned house.

Completing the survey often required repeat visits. This is because the survey required input from up to three separate respondents: the main respondent, who could be any present household member, and answered questions on household composition, basic information on members, assets, remittances, grants, housing, properties and consumption; the household head, who answered questions on residential history, satisfaction, employment, time use and commuting; and a random respondent, who was randomly selected from household members over the age of 12 (not including the head), who responded questions on satisfaction, employment, time use and commuting. Enumerators visited each house at least twice before a component could be marked as unavailable - in many cases, however, more than two visits were conducted.

Quality assurance procedures included: (i) In-interview feedback from CAPI, which provided a check that modules or questions were not missing, and alerted interviewers to mistakes and inconsistencies in given answers, so that these could be addressed while the interviewer was still with the respondent; (ii) Aggregate checks conducted using the Survey Solutions Supervisor application, which allows supervisors to identify common mistakes (applied to all initial interviews, and then through spot checks); interviewer performance and completion monitoring conducted by the implementing firm, through interviewer and EA level summaries of response rates, interview completion, and progress; (iii) weekly summaries of key indictors provided by the World Bank team (following each data delivery); (iv) direct observation of fieldwork; and (v) back check interviews.