The Living Standards Measurement Study (LSMS), a survey program housed within the World Bank’s Development Data Group, provides technical assistance to national statistical offices in the design and implementation of multi-topic household surveys.
Bridging data gaps and helping countries produce better data has been at the core of the LSMS mission since its inception in the early 1980s. Over the last four decades, the program has continuously evolved to contribute to methodological innovation and stay at the forefront of new data collection technologies in order to better respond to the changing data landscape and the shifting needs and priorities of the development community. The overarching goal of the LSMS is to foster the development and facilitate the adoption of new methods and standards in household data collection for evidence-based policymaking.