Improving Population and Poverty Estimates with Citizen Surveys: Evidence from East Africa

The suggestion therefore is that citizen surveys such as UWEZO provide better, and more accurate, coverage of the poorest of the poor. Using the lowest estimate of the percentage “missing” in urban slums and extrapolating to all developing countries, there are an estimated 369 million missing from the sampling frames of standardized household surveys worldwide. This has important implications for the “Leave no one behind” appeal of the UN Secretary General and for the UN's “Data Revolution”. Some suggestions are made about how to progress improved population estimates.