National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), on Monday, commenced a special survey on maternal and infant mortality rate and violence against women and children.
The fifth round of Multi Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS5), according to the director, Real Sector and Households Department of NBS, Chief Isiaka Olanrewaju, who addressd a press briefing in Abuja , said that the survey will also measure educational development of children, nutritional status and women as well as children’s access to water and sanitation.
MICS is a household – based survey developed by the United Nations International Children Education Fund (UNICEF) and designed to assess the situation of children and women in the areas of health, education, child protection as well as HIV/AIDS worldwide.
The survey also intends to provide up-to-date information on the situation of children and women in Nigeria; strengthen national statistical capacity by focusing on data gathering, quality of survey information, statistical tracking and analysis as well as contribute to the improvement of data and monitoring systems in Nigeria.
It will equally strengthen technical expertise in the design, implementation and analysis of such systems; serve as baseline for Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) agenda; 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 (NPC).
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 SDGs.
While noting that MICS5 will hold across the 36 states and Abuja, Olanrewaju added that the survey will however, be conducted on a senatorial basis in Lagos and Kano states in view of their large population.
In all, 37, 440 households would be surveyed in the three-month exercise that will be concluded by mid-December,
Each state and FCT have been broken down into 60 enumeration areas while 16 households each would be surveyed with the exception of Lagos and Kano, which were carved into 120 enumeration areas each.
The director said that UNICEF, World Bank, The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, National Agency for the Control of Aids and USAID, are some of the partners funding the N1.2 billion project, which will deploy 12 people to each of the 35 states and Abuja in addition to 24 people each for Lagos and Kano.
Other major stakeholders in the implementation of MICS 5 include; Ministry of Budget and National Planning, National Population Commission, the Federal ministries of Health, Education, Agriculture and Water Resources, , National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA), office of the Senior Special Assistant SDGs, Lagos and Kano states
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