THE CHALLENGENGES OF COLLECTING DISABILITY STATISITICS IN A LARGE SCALE EXERCISE, IN UGANDA by

1. THE CHALLENGENGES OF COLLECTING DISABILITY STATISITICS IN A LARGE SCALE EXERCISE, IN UGANDA by Helen Nviiri Uganda Bureau of Statistics

2. Introduction • Censuses have remained the largest sources of Demographic & Socio economic data in Uganda (1911, 1921, 1931, 1948, 1959, 1969, 1980, 1991, 2002) • Other sources include • Surveys • Administrative records

3. Existing Policies for Collecting Disability Data • The 1998 Statistics Act • The Draft Disability Policy

4. Existing Sources of Large Scale Disability Data • The 1991 Population and Housing Census • The 2002 Population and Housing Census • The 2004 Northern Uganda Baseline Survey • The 2005/6 Uganda National Household Survey • The Annual School Census - by Min of Education • The proposed 2006 Uganda DHS

5. Existing Sources of Administrative Disability Data • The Health Management Information system • The Pilot Disability MIS - Tororo District, Eastern Uganda

6. Existing Programs to address the concerns of PWD’s • The draft Disability Policy • The CBR Programme • NGO’s • Uganda society for the deaf • COMBRA • The National OVC Strategic Framework • etc

7. What are the challenges? Definitional Problems • The definitions and concepts used to collect disability data • Lack of harmonised concepts • The reference period for the disability type may not be taken into consideration

8. Challenges cont…. Methodological/Coverage Issues • In censuses, do we cover all institutions, households, and hotels? • In household surveys, do we cover the institutions, refugee camps or Internally Displaced People’s camps (IDP’s)? • Are administrative records nationally representative?

9. Challenges cont…. Training of Field Staff • Unlike large-scale surveys, for censuses, a large number of interviewers is required (about 35,000 - the 2002 census) • Training is usually conducted at 3 levels • Trainers may lack the capacity for special needs training – team composition • At all training levels, Special Needs Trainers are required which is not the case

10. Challenges cont…. Type of respondent • In censuses and surveys, all questions target the Household Head • Important though for children especially those aged less than 10 yrs • What happens in case institutional/hotel population, especially those institutions for PWD’s – are guidelines given?

11. Challenges cont…. Field Testing • No field testing is done during the field data collection. We take the responses as given by the respondent • It is important especially for young children, those aged less than 10 years • This requires specially trained personnel and maybe time consuming • It is proved to be expensive

12. Challenges cont…. Field Supervision • The large number of enumerators complicates the supervision of data collection • This increases the demand for supervisors and technical staff (disability assessment)

13. Challenges cont…. Field Supervision • In case of HH Surveys, the problems maybe limited, if the number of teams is small and when the teams are centrally controlled

14. Conclusions & Recommendations • Include NGO’s CBO’s for the PWDs at all levels/stages of the Census/survey. • Decide on the levels of analysis before the data is collected. Should the hotel census questionnaire include disability questions?

15. THE END THANK YOU