Poverty is a major concern and an important issue in Ethiopia. It is a chronic problem exacerbated by war, drought, and inappropriate policies. According to recent but ad-hoc studies, the majority of the country's population is estimated to fall below the poverty line. Though this is not supported by any statistical survey results, it is no doubt carried some truth considering the living conditions of the rural as well as the urban poor in this country. In view of the wider context of the problem, the establishment of the WMS, as justified above is envisaged to consist of major elements such as establishing an information system that provides a continuous picture of the poverty scenario in the country, indicate the impact of reform programs on the level of household welfare, establish follow-up procedures on the various programs and activities targeted towards poverty alleviation and conduct regular statistical surveys to assess in particular the efficiency of targeted programs. Welfare Monitoring Survey of 1995 was the first of its kind to be undertaken in Ethiopia covering both rural and urban areas. The WMS places emphasis on six basic needs indicators. These are health, education, anthropometry, access to selected facilities/services, amenities, and assets. However, the distribution of households by domestic expenditure was obtained from the Household Income, Consumption, and Expenditure (HICES) in which the WMS data were classified by expenditure group. Moreover, the food expenditure and relevant per capita calorie intake were computed from the HICE survey and reported in the Household Income, Consumption, and Expenditure Survey Bulletin.
The survey was conducted on the basis of 12 rural and 15 urban households selected in each EA and a total of 11, 569 households (7,010 in rural and 4,559 in urban) all over the country were covered in the survey.

• Welfare Monitoring Survey
• Socio-Economic
• Households
• Stratified sample design
• CSA
• Assets
• Child anthropometry
• Cooking fuels
• Diarrhea
• Education
• Fever
• Health care access
• Health care use
• Household air pollution
• Housing conditions
• Housing materials
• Immunization
• Lighting
• Literacy
• Population characteristics
• Individuals
• Refrigeration
• Sanitation
• Transportation
• Water supply
• Weight

Central Statistical Agency (Ethiopia). Ethiopia Welfare Monitoring Survey 1996.

Welfare Monitoring Survey (WMS) of 1996 was the first of its kind to be undertaken in Ethiopia covering both rural and urban areas.  This survey data capture information on major welfare indicators including basic population characteristics variables such as residence (urban vs rural), Sex, Age groups, and households size, education indicators variables such as literacy and numeracy, educational enrolment and attainment, health and health-related indicators variables such as age groups vs Illness, information related to HIV/AIDS-related Indicators, on access to selected facilities including a food market, schools, post office, health center, transport service, source of drinking water, telephone, milling service and source of firewood, amenities, and assets, area identification and data on related to harmful traditions which are vital inputs in the process of monitoring and evaluation of policies, particularly in poverty reduction strategies. The data were collected using a structured questionnaire by trained survey teams from selected households and individuals.

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