FG flags off N1.2bn survey for women, children welfare

Federal Government yesterday flagged off a N1.2 billion survey designed to assess and ascertain up-to-date information on the situation of children and women in Nigeria.

Speaking at the launch of the Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS 5), Yemi Kale, statistician general of the Federation and CEO of National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), says “the survey 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.”

Kale, represented by Isyaka Olanrewaju, NBS director in charge of real sector and household statistics, says the data collected with the MICS 5 will be used in monitoring progress of national goals and global commitments aimed at promoting the welfare of children, including Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

He explains that since 1995, when Nigeria first conducted the first MICS, the benefits of the survey that has been conducted every four years has been enormous, as this year’s edition is been co-funded by foreign organisations like World Bank, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation as well as the Federal Ministry of Health.

Kale further says that MICS 5 has been beefed up with some innovations, which include a first of its kind “Computer Assisted Personal Interview (CAPI) methodology that will be used to collect data for the survey.

Also, this year’s edition that will be conducted side by side with the National Immunisation Coverage Survey (NICS) has been extended to include questionnaire for individual men and modules such as water quality test, tobacco and alcohol use, life satisfaction, access to mass media and use of information communication technology.

Other objectives of the survey, according to the Statistician General, include: “To strengthen national statistical capacity by focusing on data gathering, quality of survey information, statistical tracking and analysis, and to contribute to the improvement of data and monitoring systems in Nigeria.”

Others are “to strengthen technical expertise in the design, implementation and analysis of such systems. To also serve as baseline for SDGs agenda as well as provide statistics to complement and assess the quality of data from recent national surveys, such as Nigerian General Household Panel Survey (NGHPS) and National Demographic and Health Survey (NDHS) conducted by National Population Commission (NPopC),” he said.

While appealing for the cooperation of the general public while the NBS enumerators are in the field, Kale disclosed that MICS 5 would cover all the states of the federation and FCT, as 960 selected households will be interviewed in each state.

In his remarks, Dennis Tobby, representative of UNICEF for the project, said the survey was used globally by UNICEF, adding that it was also used in monitoring poverty.

While Kano and Lagos states are more involved in this year’s edition of the survey, the benefits of the survey in Nigeria will be far reaching, he said.