Pretoria - Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) has launched an urgent appeal on Friday for South Africans to participate in a survey on their living conditions.
Stats SA is currently conducting the survey in all nine provinces to determine the levels of poverty in the country.
READ: Growing poverty in SA
The call goes out especially to people in the Western Cape, Gauteng, Limpopo and KwaZulu-Natal where Stats SA is encountering challenges in the response rate.
A sample survey of approximately 32 000 dwelling units will be taken. Stats SA started with the survey in October 2014 and it will run until October 2015.
The survey tries to determine who, where and why people are poor by trying to understand the levels of unemployment, income and education levels attained, among others. All members of the household will also be weighed and measured twice, to determine their nutritional status.
Stats SA appealed to South African citizens to open their doors to its data collectors and participate in the survey.
Its results will assist the country’s policy-makers to better understand the levels of poverty experienced by South Africans and come up with better intervention strategies, according to Stats SA.
"We are appealing to the respondents to continue opening doors for us, as the information we collecting is crucial for planning and, therefore, for the betterment of the people of this country,” said Nozipho Shabalala, executive manager for poverty and inequality statistics.
READ: Poverty a national crisis - Cosatu
Currently the response rates per province are:
Western Cape 79%
Eastern Cape 97%
Northern Cape 90%
Free State 91%
KwaZulu-Natal 89%
North West 91%
Gauteng 86%
Mpumalanga 96%
Limpopo 86%
South Africa overall 89%
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