By Cecilia Ologunagba
Abuja – The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) says it will begin the Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) on Monday.
MICS is a household based survey developed by UNICEF and designed to assess the situation of children and women in the areas of health, education, child protection and HIV/AIDS worldwide.
This is contained in a statement by the Statistician-General, Dr Yemi Kale, on Friday in Abuja.
Kale said that NBS would send enumerators to the field for 92 days, starting from Sept. 19 to administer questionnaires on the selected households for the survey.
He said that MICS 5 (fifth series) would cover all the states of the federation and FCT with 960 selected households to be interviewed in each state.
“MICS can be used as data collection tool in monitoring progress of national goals and global commitments aimed at promoting the welfare of children, including Sustainable development Goals (SDGs).
“In Nigeria, this MICS is the fifth of a series which started in 1995 and has been extended to include questionnaire for individual men and modules such as water quality test.
“It has extended to tobacco and alcohol use, life satisfaction, access to mass media and use of Information Communication Technology.’’
According to him, MICS 5 is unique in many ways because it is the first time Computer Assisted Personal Interview (CAPI) is being used to collect data on MICS.
In addition, he said that National Immunisation Coverage Survey (NICS) would be combined with MICS 5, making one National Survey at a time.
The statistician-general, however, said the objectives of the survey included providing up-to-date information on the situation of children and women in Nigeria.
He said the survey would strengthen national statistical capacity by focusing on data gathering, quality of survey information, statistical tracking and analysis.
“It will contribute to the improvement of data and monitoring systems in Nigeria and strengthen technical expertise in the design, implementation and analysis of such systems.
“It will also serve as baseline for Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) agenda and provide statistics to complement and assess the quality of data from recent national surveys.
“The recent national survey such as Nigerian General Household Panel Survey (NGHPS) and National Demographic and Health Survey (NDHS) conducted by National Population Commission (NPopC),’’ Kale said.
According to him, NBS is the implementing agency of MICS 5 with technical and financial support from UNICEF.
Other major stakeholders in the implementation of MICS 5 include Ministry of Budget and National Planning, NPopC, Federal Ministries of Health, Education, Agriculture and Water Resources,
(Edited by Dorcas Jonah/Idris Abdulrahman)
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