Guidelines

This section provides guidelines and best practices related to all stages of survey implementation. Some have been produced by or for the IHSN, others are based on other agencies' work. This section operates as a portal, and its guidelines address the following:

• designing survey programs. In many developing countries, survey programs are still ad-hoc and heavily dependent on external funding. As a result, national survey programs often lack consistency and coherence in their timing, sequencing, scope, and methodologies. These guidelines are intended primarily for national statistical agencies.
• creating survey budgets.
• implementing surveys. These guidelines relate to the entire life cycle of a survey, are organized according to the Generic Statistical Business Process Model (GSBPM), and provide generic recommendations for all stages of survey implementation, but do not include recommendations for the design of particular survey instruments.
  
• integrating surveys. Based on classifications, concepts, and methods consistent with other data collection operations such as surveys, censuses, and administrative data collection, such integration is critical to producing a coherent knowledge base, but is difficult to achieve.
• archiving and dissemination of microdata. Although archiving and documentation of survey data are part of the GSBPM, we provide guidelines in a separate section as this is an area to which the IHSN has devoted much attention and resources.

This section also provides a collection of IHSN Working Papers.