Microdata Collection and Openness in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA)

We use a ‘mystery client’ approach and visit the websites of all NSOs in the Middle East and Africa Region to assess whether core mircodata sets are collected, up to date and made available to researchers. The focus is on population and  economic censuses, price data and consumption, labor, health and establishment surveys. Results show that about half of the expected core data sets are being collected and that only a fraction is made available publicly. By consequence many summary statistics, including national accounts and welfare estimates, are outdated and of limited relevance to decision makers. We strongly advocate for additional investments in microdata collection as well as publication of the data once collected.