65th ISI World Statistics Congress 2025

65th ISI World Statistics Congress 2025

Developing a Pre-Census National Sampling Frame in Armenia

Conference

65th ISI World Statistics Congress 2025

Format: CPS Poster - WSC 2025

Keywords: developingnations, frame, geospatial, household surveys, sample

Abstract

The lack of a workable and accurate national sampling frame is one of the methodological constraints in conducting representative national surveys in many developing countries. This is particularly true for countries experiencing significant internal displacement and relocation due to territorial and military conflicts. This paper addresses this issue by constructing the first digitized national sampling frame in Armenia, a conflict-affected developing country, where reliable and accessible national sampling frames for household and individual surveys are severely limited. We created the first-ever digitized urban and rural strata boundaries in the country. Leveraging a semi-automatic and resource-efficient approach and the most recent data available, we construct a national sampling frame that meets international standards based on pre-census enumeration areas (pre-EAs). The generated national sampling frame offers several advantages over the existing potential sampling frames in the country, which are based on census settlements, electoral precincts, grid sampling, and old census enumeration areas. This new frame is applied to conducting the World Bank Group’s “Listening to Armenia” survey, demonstrating its potential for other socioeconomic surveys in the country. Moreover, the method used for creating the digitized national sampling frame can be extended to other countries. It can be employed to generate and update national sampling frames efficiently, given that manually generating both the digitized and non-digitized national sampling frames requires massive financial and non-financial resources.

Figures/Tables

arm_preea

preea_boundary

urbrur_strata

GHSL

data_prep

DVG