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 the analysis of the combined 1995-1996 household budget survey and the 1996 Welfare Monitoring Survey, 45.5 % of the population was falling in the poverty line. About 47.5 % of the rural population fell below the poverty line while the corresponding figure for the urban population was 33.2 %.
As in the case of a number of African countries that undertook the Social Dimensions of Adjustment (SDA) program, the issue of welfare monitoring in Ethiopia arose as part of the Economic Reform Program (ERP) currently being undertaken in the country. The ERP specifically and strongly underlies the effects of the reform program on poverty and the analytical capacity of the government to monitor such effects. To this end, a Welfare Monitoring System (WMS) was set up by the government by mid-1994.
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 particularly the efficiency of targeted programs.
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 household domestic expenditure was obtained by recall interview with reference periods of the last month previous to the day of the interview. These WMS data were classified by expenditure quintile and used as background variables for tabulation.

• 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 1998.

The 1998 (1990 Ethiopian Calendar, E.C.) Welfare Monitoring Survey (WMS) was the second round of WMS conducted in Ethiopia. This survey data capture information on major welfare indicators including basic population characteristics variables such as residence (urban vs rural), sex, age groups, and household size.  Education indicators variables were used such as literacy and numeracy, educational enrolment, and attainment.  On the other hand, health and health-related indicators variables such as age groups in comparison with illness. On the other hand, information related to HIV/AIDS-related Indicators is those access to selected facilities including food markets, schools, post offices, health centers, transport services, sources 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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