Officers from the Central Statistical Office (CSO) of the Ministry of Finance and Energy will, from 19 t0 22 January 2015, be engaged in training in survey design, sample design, and the construction of survey weights. This training will be facilitated by the World Bank and will be held at the Grenada National Stadium.
In the last quarter of 2014, the CSO conducted the second round of the OECS Harmonised Labour Force Survey (LFS) in Grenada. In ensuring that the Statistics produced is consistent with international standards and that a cadre of persons are trained, the CSO requested from the World Bank (WB) training and technical assistance (TA) in survey design, sample design, and the construction of survey weights. The World Bank has since acceded to this request.
The World Bank team will also be working with CSO in the provision of technical assistance in the analysis and interpretation of the results from the Labour Force Surveys 2013 and 2014. Consequently, this training in sampling is very timely and critical for (1) enabling the undertaking of a comprehensive analysis of the Labour Market in Grenada (2)  Supporting the CSO’s efforts to improve its data management process and (3) supporting evidence based policy making in Grenada.
The course will cover the basics of sampling for household surveys, both in theory and in practical terms and the construction of analytical survey weights. It is useful both for those who plan to be involved in any of a variety of sample surveys as well as those who analyse such data. Upon completing the course the participants should be familiar with the major issues and procedures.
The main topics to be covered by the training are as follows:
- Fundamentals of Sampling for Household Surveys
- Self-Weighting vs. Weighted Samples
- Construction of Evidence Based Samples
- Accounting for Non-Response
- Formulation of Survey weights
 A primary output of the training will be the production of survey weights for the 2013 and 2014 Labour Force Surveys.