2002-2003 Living Conditions Monitoring Survey
Third Edition
Zambia, 2002 - 2003
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Reference ID
ZMB-ZSA-LCMS-2002-2003-V1.0
Producer(s)
Central Statistics Office
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Jan 16, 2026
Last modified
Jan 27, 2026
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Identification
Survey ID Number
ZMB-ZSA-LCMS-2002-2003-V1.0
Title
2002-2003 Living Conditions Monitoring Survey
Subtitle
Third Edition
Country
| Name | Country code |
|---|---|
| ZAMBIA | ZMB |
Study type
Living Standards Measurement Study [hh/lsms]
Series Information
The Central Statistics Office (CSO) has been conducting the household based Living Conditions Monitoring Survey (LCMS) since 1996 for monitoring various Government and donor policies and programmes. The LCMS surveys evolved from the Social Dimensions of Adjustment Priority Surveys conducted in 1991 (PSI) and 1993 (PSII). So far, three LCMS Surveys have been conducted. This is the third (3rd) Series of the LCMS.
The Living Conditions Monitoring Survey conducted in 2002/2003 was a nation-wide survey.The sample design and sample size used in the survey allow for reliable estimates at province,location (Rural/Urban) and national levels.
The Living Conditions Monitoring Survey 2002/2003 collected data on the living conditions of households and persons in the areas of education, health, economic activities and employment, child nutrition, death in the households, income sources, income levels, food production, household consumption expenditure, access to clean and safe water and sanitation, housing and access to various socio-economic facilities and infraucture such as schools, health facilities, transport, banks,credit facilities,markets, etc.
The Living Conditions Monitoring Survey conducted in 2002/2003 was a nation-wide survey.The sample design and sample size used in the survey allow for reliable estimates at province,location (Rural/Urban) and national levels.
The Living Conditions Monitoring Survey 2002/2003 collected data on the living conditions of households and persons in the areas of education, health, economic activities and employment, child nutrition, death in the households, income sources, income levels, food production, household consumption expenditure, access to clean and safe water and sanitation, housing and access to various socio-economic facilities and infraucture such as schools, health facilities, transport, banks,credit facilities,markets, etc.
Abstract
The Living Conditions Monitoring Survey conducted in 2002/2003 was a nation-wide survey. The sample design and sample size used in the survey allow for reliable estimates at province, location (Rural/Urban) and national levels. The main objectives of the LCMSIII Survey was to:
-Monitor the impact of Government policies, programmes and donor support on the well being of the Zambian population
-Monitor and evaluate the implementation of some of the programmes envisaged in the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP)
-Monitor poverty and its distribution in Zambia
-Provide various users with a set of reliable indicators against which to monitor development
-Provide province specific poverty profiles using different poverty lines
-Identify vulnerable groups in society and enhance targeting in policy formulation and implementation
-Provide data required for developing new national and province specific weights for the Consumer Price Index (CPI)
-Provide data required for estimating Gross Domestic Products’ (GDP) household final consumption
The Living Conditions Monitoring Survey 2002/2003 collected data on the living conditions of households and persons in the areas of education, health, economic activities and employment, child nutrition, death in the households, income sources, income levels, food production, household consumption expenditure, access to clean and safe water and sanitation, housing and access to various socio-economic facilities and infrastructure such as schools, health facilities, transport, banks, credit facilities, markets, etc.
-Monitor the impact of Government policies, programmes and donor support on the well being of the Zambian population
-Monitor and evaluate the implementation of some of the programmes envisaged in the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP)
-Monitor poverty and its distribution in Zambia
-Provide various users with a set of reliable indicators against which to monitor development
-Provide province specific poverty profiles using different poverty lines
-Identify vulnerable groups in society and enhance targeting in policy formulation and implementation
-Provide data required for developing new national and province specific weights for the Consumer Price Index (CPI)
-Provide data required for estimating Gross Domestic Products’ (GDP) household final consumption
The Living Conditions Monitoring Survey 2002/2003 collected data on the living conditions of households and persons in the areas of education, health, economic activities and employment, child nutrition, death in the households, income sources, income levels, food production, household consumption expenditure, access to clean and safe water and sanitation, housing and access to various socio-economic facilities and infrastructure such as schools, health facilities, transport, banks, credit facilities, markets, etc.
Kind of Data
Sample survey data [ssd]
Unit of Analysis
IHousehold, Individual and communities
Version
Version Description
Version 1.0 (Edited, anonymized dataset for public distribution)
Version Date
2004-11-01
Version Notes
V1.0 is the first and final version of the report
Scope
Notes
The scope of the LCMSIII survey in terms of topics covered was to a large extent guided by the ZAMSIF supported User-Producer committee recommendations. As such, the survey only included extended components of agreed upon topics of policy relevance. In broad terms, the survey included: -
(i) A set of core living conditions indicators to be monitored over a period of twelve months and
(ii) The household budget component to be implemented over a period of twelve months.
The scope of the 2002/2003 LCMS includes indicators on the following: Household characteristics, householfd expenditure, household income, Death in the household, Household food production, Orphanhood, health, education, current economic activity, anthropemetry, Household amenities and houseing conditions, household acess to facilities, household assests, self-assessed poverty and household coping stragies community development issues.
(i) A set of core living conditions indicators to be monitored over a period of twelve months and
(ii) The household budget component to be implemented over a period of twelve months.
The scope of the 2002/2003 LCMS includes indicators on the following: Household characteristics, householfd expenditure, household income, Death in the household, Household food production, Orphanhood, health, education, current economic activity, anthropemetry, Household amenities and houseing conditions, household acess to facilities, household assests, self-assessed poverty and household coping stragies community development issues.
Topics
| Topic | Vocabulary |
|---|---|
| Agriculture & Rural Development | World Bank |
| Food (production, crisis) | World Bank |
| Education | World Bank |
| Nutrition | World Bank |
| Poverty | World Bank |
| Health | World Bank |
| Environment | World Bank |
| Water | World Bank |
| HIV/AIDS | World Bank |
| Social Development | World Bank |
| Infrastructure | World Bank |
| Malaria | World Bank |
| Disability | World Bank |
Keywords
| Keyword |
|---|
| Poverty |
| Income |
| Consumption |
| Expenture |
| Child Nutrition |
Coverage
Geographic Coverage
The survey is a nationwide coverage. It covered both rural and urban areas in all the nine provinces.
Universe
The Survey Covered all de jure Households memebers (usual residents)
Producers and sponsors
Primary investigators
| Name | Affiliation |
|---|---|
| Central Statistics Office | Ministry of Finance and National Planning |
Producers
| Name | Role |
|---|---|
| Government Republic of Zambia | Funding the Survey |
| Zambia Social investment Fund | Managing the survey funds |
| WorldBank Group | Technical Support |
| Food Agriculture Organisation | Technical Support |
Funding Agency/Sponsor
| Name | Abbreviation | Role |
|---|---|---|
| Government Republic of Zambia | GRZ | Funding the Survey |
Other Identifications/Acknowledgments
| Name | Role |
|---|---|
| The Living Conditions Monitoring Branch staff | for having executed the survey successfully and for putting this report together |
| Various Zamstats staff and users | contributed towards the finalisation of the LCMS survey instruments and report |
| All field staff: Enumerators, Supervisors, Master Trainers, Provincial Heads and their Deputies, Drivers and other survey staff | |
| All data processing staff: Data Entry Clerks and their Supervisors, Computer Technicians and other data processing staff | |
| All households who provided their valuable time and information |
Sampling
Sampling Procedure
The Living Conditions Monitoring Survey III (LCMSIII) was designed to cover 520 Standard Enumeration Areas (SEAs) or approximately 10,000 non-institutionalised private households residing in both the rural and urban areas of all the nine provinces in Zambia. The survey was carried out for a period of 12 months using a rolling sample. For the purposes of this survey, a survey reference month had 36 days instead of 30 or 31 days, as is the case with calendar months. This implies that the 360 days in a year were divided into 10 cycles of 36 days each. As a result 52 SEAs, which is one-tenth of the 520 SEAs, were covered every cycle countrywide.
The LCMSIII survey employed a two-stage stratified cluster sample design whereby during the first stage, 520 SEAs were selected with Probability Proportional to Estimated Size (PPES). The size measure was taken from the frame developed from the 2000 census of population and housing. During the second stage, households were systematically selected from an enumeration area listing. The survey was designed to provide reliable estimates at provincial, residential and national levels.
The LCMSIII survey commenced by listing all the households in the selected SEAs. In the case of rural SEAs, households were stratified and listed according to their agricultural activity status. Therefore, there were four explicit strata created in each rural SEA namely, the Small Scale Stratum (SSS), the Medium Scale Stratum (MSS), the Large Scale Stratum (LSS) and the Non-agricultural Stratum (NAS). For the purposes of the LCMSIII survey, about 7, 5 and 3 households were supposed to be selected from the SSS, MSS and NAS, respectively. The large scale households were selected on a 100 percent basis. The urban SEAs were implicitly stratified into low cost, medium cost and high cost areas according to CSO's and local authority classification of residential areas. About 15 and 25 households were sampled from rural and urban SEAs, respectively. However, the umber of rural households selected in some cases exceeded the desired sample size of 15 households depending on the availability of large scale farming households. The selection of households from various strata was preceded by assigning fully responding households sampling serial numbers. The circular systematic sampling method was used to select households. The method assumes that households are arranged in a circle (G. Kalton, 1983) and the following relationship applies:
Let N = nk,
Where:
N = Total number of households assigned sampling serial numbers in a stratum n = Total desired sample size to be drawn from a stratum in an SEA k = The sampling interval in a given SEA calculated as k=N/n.
The LCMSIII survey employed a two-stage stratified cluster sample design whereby during the first stage, 520 SEAs were selected with Probability Proportional to Estimated Size (PPES). The size measure was taken from the frame developed from the 2000 census of population and housing. During the second stage, households were systematically selected from an enumeration area listing. The survey was designed to provide reliable estimates at provincial, residential and national levels.
The LCMSIII survey commenced by listing all the households in the selected SEAs. In the case of rural SEAs, households were stratified and listed according to their agricultural activity status. Therefore, there were four explicit strata created in each rural SEA namely, the Small Scale Stratum (SSS), the Medium Scale Stratum (MSS), the Large Scale Stratum (LSS) and the Non-agricultural Stratum (NAS). For the purposes of the LCMSIII survey, about 7, 5 and 3 households were supposed to be selected from the SSS, MSS and NAS, respectively. The large scale households were selected on a 100 percent basis. The urban SEAs were implicitly stratified into low cost, medium cost and high cost areas according to CSO's and local authority classification of residential areas. About 15 and 25 households were sampled from rural and urban SEAs, respectively. However, the umber of rural households selected in some cases exceeded the desired sample size of 15 households depending on the availability of large scale farming households. The selection of households from various strata was preceded by assigning fully responding households sampling serial numbers. The circular systematic sampling method was used to select households. The method assumes that households are arranged in a circle (G. Kalton, 1983) and the following relationship applies:
Let N = nk,
Where:
N = Total number of households assigned sampling serial numbers in a stratum n = Total desired sample size to be drawn from a stratum in an SEA k = The sampling interval in a given SEA calculated as k=N/n.
Deviations from the Sample Design
About 15 and 25 households were sampled from rural and urban SEAs, respectively. However, the number of rural households selected in some cases exceeded the desired sample size of 15 households depending on the availability of large scale farming households.The selection of households from various strata was preceded by assigning fully responding households sampling serial numbers. The circular systematic sampling method was used to select households. The method assumes that households are arranged in a circle (G. Kalton, 1983) and the following relationship applies:
Weighting
Due to the disproportionate allocation of the sample points to various strata, sampling weights are required to correct for differential representation of the sample at national and sub-national levels. The weights of the sample are in this case equal to the inverse of the product of the two selection probabilities .
In order to correct for differential representation, all estimates generated from the LCMSIII survey data are weighted expressions
In order to correct for differential representation, all estimates generated from the LCMSIII survey data are weighted expressions
Data Collection
Dates of Data Collection
| Start | End |
|---|---|
| 2002 | 2003 |
Data Collection Mode
Face-to-face [f2f]
Supervision
The supervisor was responsible for day-to-day work plan of the enumerators assigned to him/her. Among other things he/she was responsible for:-
1. Finding The Selected Household: The supervisor was responsible for helping the enumerators find the selected households, using the maps and information established during the Listing stage.They were also responsible for correcting the maps where necessary. Also, help the interviewers to persuade reluctant households to participate. For those households that persist in refusing or those that were not tracable, it was also the supervisors responsibility to replace these households with others from the list of replacement households.
1. Finding The Selected Household: The supervisor was responsible for helping the enumerators find the selected households, using the maps and information established during the Listing stage.They were also responsible for correcting the maps where necessary. Also, help the interviewers to persuade reluctant households to participate. For those households that persist in refusing or those that were not tracable, it was also the supervisors responsibility to replace these households with others from the list of replacement households.
Data Collection Notes
Data collection was done by way of personal interviews using two structured questionnaires. These questionnaires are main Household Questionnaire and the price Questionnaire. The main Household questionnaire was divided in to two parts, namely
1.Main Questionnaire Part 1-used for collecting information on the various aspects of the living conditions of the households.
2.Main Questionnaire Part II -all the information collected using the household expenditure diary was later on transcribed to this questionnaire in aggregates so as to make computer data capturing easy.This part of the questionnaire was also used to collect information on household income, Non-Farm enterprises and deaths in the households.
1.Main Questionnaire Part 1-used for collecting information on the various aspects of the living conditions of the households.
2.Main Questionnaire Part II -all the information collected using the household expenditure diary was later on transcribed to this questionnaire in aggregates so as to make computer data capturing easy.This part of the questionnaire was also used to collect information on household income, Non-Farm enterprises and deaths in the households.
Data Collectors
| Name | Abbreviation | Affiliation |
|---|---|---|
| Central Statistics Office | CSO | Ministry of Finanace and National Planning |
Questionnaires
Questionnaires
The LCMSIII main questionnaire was made of two distinct parts. Part I of the main questionnaire covered the following topics: -
Demography and migration
Orphan hood
Health
Education
Current economic activities and labour force
Child Health Care and Nutrition
Household amenities and housing conditions
Household access to facilities
Household assets
Self-assessed poverty and household coping strategies, and
Household food production
Part II of the main questionnaire covered the following topics: -
Household expenditure
Household Income
Household Non-Farm Enterprises, and
Deaths in the Household
The information on household expenditure and consumption was collected using a diary and then transferred to the main questionnaire part II. In addition to the household questionnaire, the LCMSIII survey also collected community price information using a community price questionnaire. The price data is relevant for adjusting household expenditure data for differences in cost of living both in time and space.
Demography and migration
Orphan hood
Health
Education
Current economic activities and labour force
Child Health Care and Nutrition
Household amenities and housing conditions
Household access to facilities
Household assets
Self-assessed poverty and household coping strategies, and
Household food production
Part II of the main questionnaire covered the following topics: -
Household expenditure
Household Income
Household Non-Farm Enterprises, and
Deaths in the Household
The information on household expenditure and consumption was collected using a diary and then transferred to the main questionnaire part II. In addition to the household questionnaire, the LCMSIII survey also collected community price information using a community price questionnaire. The price data is relevant for adjusting household expenditure data for differences in cost of living both in time and space.
Data Processing
Data Editing
The data from the LCMSIII survey was processed and analysed using the CSPRO and the Statistical Analysis Sytem (SAS) softwares respectively.Data entry was done from all the provincial offices with 100 percent verfication, whilst data cleaning and analysis was undertaken at CSO's headquarters.
Access policy
Contacts
| Name | Affiliation | URL | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Head of Dissemination | Zambia Statistics Agency | info@zamstats.gov.zm | Link |
Confidentiality
The Agency shall,where statistics are designated as official statistics, protect the confidentiality and identity of the source of data.
Under the provision of the Statistics ACT no.13 of 2018, ZamStats is obliged to preserve the confidentiality of respondent information in all its census and survey data
Before being granted access to the dataset, all users have to formally agree:
1. To make no copies of any files or portions of files to which s/he is granted access except those authorized by the Agency.
2. Not to use any technique in an attempt to learn the identity of any person, establishment, or sampling unit not identified on public use data files.
3. To hold in strictest confidence the identification of any establishment or individual that may be inadvertently revealed in any documents or discussion, or analysis. Such inadvertent identification revealed in her/his analysis will be immediately brought to the attention of the Agency
Access conditions
Access Conditions: Micro data records are anonymised as per procedures before these are made available to users.
Micro data files are all free but under access policy Conditions:
Each dataset has an access policy :Public use file- Accessible to all and - Licensed datasets, accessible under conditions. The dataset has been anonymized and is available as a Public Use Dataset. It is accessible to all for statistical and research purposes only, under the following terms and conditions:
1. The data and other materials will not be redistributed or sold to other individuals, institutions, or organizations without the written agreement of the Zambia Statistics Agency
2. The data will be used for statistical and scientific research purposes only. They will be used solely for reporting of aggregated information, and not for investigation of specific individuals or organizations.
3. No attempt will be made to re-identify respondents, and no use will be made of the identity of any person or establishment discovered inadvertently.
Micro data files are all free but under access policy Conditions:
Each dataset has an access policy :Public use file- Accessible to all and - Licensed datasets, accessible under conditions. The dataset has been anonymized and is available as a Public Use Dataset. It is accessible to all for statistical and research purposes only, under the following terms and conditions:
1. The data and other materials will not be redistributed or sold to other individuals, institutions, or organizations without the written agreement of the Zambia Statistics Agency
2. The data will be used for statistical and scientific research purposes only. They will be used solely for reporting of aggregated information, and not for investigation of specific individuals or organizations.
3. No attempt will be made to re-identify respondents, and no use will be made of the identity of any person or establishment discovered inadvertently.
Citation requirements
Central Statistics Office(2002/2003). Living Conditions Monitoring Survey Report 2002-2003, Lusaka, Zambia
Access authority
| Name | Affiliation | URL | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Zambia Statistics Agency | Ministry of Finanace and National Planning | info@zamstats.gov.zm | Link |
Disclaimer and copyrights
Disclaimer
ZamStats will not bear any responsibility for the erroneous use of its data by researchers. Users should report inconsistencies in the data (both micro and aggregated) to ZamStats as soon as possible.
The user of the data acknowledges that the original collector of the data, the authorized distributor of the data, and the relevant funding agency bear no responsibility for use of the data or for interpretations or inferences based upon such use
The user of the data acknowledges that the original collector of the data, the authorized distributor of the data, and the relevant funding agency bear no responsibility for use of the data or for interpretations or inferences based upon such use
Copyright
Extracts may be published if sourced are duly acknowledged.
Metadata production
DDI Document ID
DDI-ZMB-ZSA-LCMS-2002-2003-V1.0
Producers
| Name | Abbreviation | Affiliation | Role |
|---|---|---|---|
| Zambia Statistcs Agency | ZamStats | Min istry of Finance and National Planning | Documentation of the Study |
Date of Metadata Production
2026-01-12
DDI Document version
Version 1.0 (January 2026)