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NBS, UNICEF inaugurate multiple indicator cluster survey
NAN-HE-14
Survey
By Cecilia Ologunagba
Abuja, Sept. 19, 2016 (NAN) The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) in collaboration with UNICEF will begin a Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) nation-wide on Wednesday.
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 world-wide.
The Statistician-General, Dr Yemi Kale announced this in Abuja while briefing newsmen on the indicators and benefits of the survey.
Kale was represented by Mr Isiaka Olarewaju, the Director, Real Sector and Household Statistics Department in NBS.
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“The survey has a lot of indicators that could be used for planning, policy formulation and programme implementation.
“There are so many indicators that cut across all aspects of social life.
“We have indicators that monitor the progress of children which includes mortality rate, education, development and nutritional status of the children.
“All these things are useful for proper implementation of children’s development in the country.
“We have produced this in the past at every round, we have more indicators suggested by our users and we have included them as they come.
“ So, at the end of the survey, we will be informing Nigerians about the use of those indicators.’’
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Kale said that NBS would send enumerators to the field for 92 days, starting from Sept. 21 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.
The statistician-general said that the bureau had introduced new methodologies in conducting the survey to enhance credibility of the results.
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“We have now brought some innovations into this round.
“We have stopped now to use paper questionnaires; we are now using what is called CAPI (Computer -Assisted Personal Interview) which measures even the location of data collector at the time of data collection.
“It can remove errors that would have been introduced by human i.e it is difficult now to see any pregnant man in any of our data.’’
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He, however, appealed to respondents to cooperate with data collectors to ensure smooth and error -free survey in their areas.
In his remarks, Denis Jobin, the UNICEF’s Chief, Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation as well as Field Coordination, said MICS was a global project of the agency.
Jobin said that the project would build the capacity of State Statistical Agencies that would be supervising the survey.
He said that outcome of the survey could also be used to measure the level of poverty in the country.
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, National Population Commission, Federal Ministries of Health, Education, Agriculture and Water Resources (NAN).
CIA/OSA/AFA
Edited by Shittu Obassa/Felix Ajide
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