The Statistical Office of Kosovo presented on December 11, 2008, the new Master Sample Frame, which will be used for future core government surveys in Kosovo.

 

The update was a project conducted jointly by the Statistical Office of Kosovo (SOK) and a private company, StatGIS and jointly supported by DFID and the World Bank.

 

It showed that while in neighbouring countries such as Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia, the rural population is decreasing, Kosovars tend to appreciate village life as 38.6% of occupied residential buildings are found in rural areas and 25.6% of new buildings are built in rural areas. Compared with 2004, the number of new buildings in Kosovo has increased by 3.7%. However, 23.5% of all residential buildings in Kosovo are currently unoccupied. 

 

 

 

The research updated a sample of 1,000 of the 4,944 Enumeration Areas (EAs) into which the territory of Kosovo is divided for statistical purposes. The work was conducted to add new buildings and remove derelict buildings from the old database. The previous database, founded on the 1981 Census, was extremely out of date considering the amount of destruction and construction since that time.

 

The project found many changes in the field during the four year period from 2004-2008 and the old database being so out of date had  several negative impacts on SOK’s work. However, these have now been substantially reduced.   The new Master Sample Frame will decrease the cost of surveys, reduce the difficulties of interviewers in the field and improve data quality.

 

Comparing the situation on the ground with the UN aerial photography mapping the Kosovan territory, dating back to 2004, the new research reveals that, with the exception of North Mitrovica, the average annual building growth throughout Kosovo has been 0.9% (that is 957 new buildings each year in the 1,000 EAs and approximately 4,800 new buildings each year in Kosovo).     The project shows that 65% of all buildings in Kosovo are for residential purposes and the remaining 35% are businesses, garages etc.

 

From the 1,000 EAs areas updated the total number of buildings of 102,656, in 2004 has grown to 106,485 in 2008. Therefore the increase in the number of buildings in these EAs is 3,829 or 3.7 % in four years.

 

The project shows that the total number of dwellings (this includes apartments in blocks of flats) in the 1,000 Enumeration Areas is 70,499 and 92% of these dwellings are occupied. Most new buildings have been built in urban areas (74.4%) but still 25.6% have been built in the rural parts of Kosovo.

 

The updating work took place in July and August this year and the new database of 62,955 households is available from SOK. It is already now the main source of data used when selecting households to interview for core Government surveys.    Statistically speaking, these 62,995 households currently accurately represent Kosovo and when making samples for surveys they will be the base population.     Due to the results of this work SOK are now conducting an update of all EAs in Kosovo. Otherwise, it will be difficult to go ahead and conduct the next Census with such outdated information.