Household Listing Exercise

Before carrying out the Data collection in Wobulenzi town council, a household listing exercise was carried out in the 17 sampled villages. The purpose of the household listing was to obtain a comprehensive updated list of all households in the village without any omission or duplication since the Population census data of 2002 was not adequate. The acquired list would them be used to randomly (without bias) select a sample of households, to be interviewed during data collection exercise.

The team comprised of 5 household listers and 1 supervisor. At the Town council, the team worked with the Town Clerk of Wobulenzi town council. A letter from NETWAS about the activity was earlier on written to the Town Clerk informing him of the activity. An introduction letter from the Town clerk was given to each Lister to be shown to the LCs in the villages. The Town Council water engineer was assigned the role of leading the team to the Local councils. Work started on the 12th August – 15th August 2008.

The 14 sampled villages all in Wobulenzi town council were all listed[1]. The household listers moved from one household to another to be sure all the households were listed in each village. Below is a matrix showing the total number of villages and total number of households in each village and a comparison with the original data set.

What went well in the household listing exercise

1. The listing of the households was completed in time. This was realised because the team members worked really as a team


2. The team was coherent/ there was team work. This made the whole exercise a success in fact on the final day all the household listers combined their efforts in Nakadingidi village which was the biggest village of all.


3. The community was receptive/no resistance. All the household listers reported a positive response from the community members which made household listing a more enjoyable exercises.


4. Local leaders (LCs) were cooperative although some of them wanted to be paid. With the exception of the few who demanded to be paid, the LC I Chairpersons were willing to work with the team members. Some of the Chairpersons took the opportunity to list the households in their own villages for their own purposes.


5. Locating the LC 1 Chairpersons was not a problem; at least one of the committee members was available in each village. In all the villages visited the listers were always able to connect with at least a member of the village committee who would be willing to work with us.


6. The Town coucnil water officer was available and helped a lot in locating local leaders. This made the household listing very swift as no time would be wasted looking for directions to different villages.

Challenges/Limitations

1. The challenges below also became learning lessons for the team for future household listings.


2. Timing for peri-urban settlements was not good particularly in the mornings. Most people had left their homes closed and were busy in their gardens or gone to work in different places.


3. Some residents were in the process of shifting and could not give their names for registration.


4. Some people expected water immediately while others had a lot of anger about water related issues.


5. Some household members complained of having been registered by different organizations but nothing had has been done after the study.


6. Guides complained about little allowance (shs 3000) comparing it with the whole day work they had been engaged in.


7. In some household, the head had just died and the replacement/heir had not been named.


8. Transport for household listers within the villages had not been provided which meant that all the team members had to rely on the driver alone yet the villages were so distant.


9. Time for the exercise was not adequate. It needed more time because some villages were so big. On average 150 households could be listed in a day.


10. There was a problem of mobile phone network especially UTL /mango network which was not available in most of the areas.


11. On the list of the villages in Wobulenzi West is a village called Wobulenzi Modern which does not exist on the ground. In Bukalasa Ward, there is no village known as Bukalasa central any more. The former Bukalasa central was divided into-:North central, -upper east,-Upper west.


12. There were big variations in 3 of the selected villages of Lutamu, Kikasa and Modern between census (2002) and the listing exercise whereby the census had more households and yet villages were expected to have grown bigger since 2002.


13. Some households were totally closed both in urban and rural areas and neighbors could not identify the names at all. As a result the team members resorted to using names like tenant 1,2,3… or mother so and so the way they are usually called by friends and neighbors.


14. There is always need to add additional descriptions of the households on top of the names to enable easy identification