By Chinyere Anyanwu
The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), in collaboration with UNICEF and other stakeholders, has flagged off the process of data collection on the MICS6/NICS 2021 edition, starting with the Training of Trainers (ToT) workshop in Lagos, yesterday.
The NBS said the Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) and the National Immunisation Coverage Survey (NICS) is the largest source of statistically sound and internationally comparable data on women and children worldwide focusing on health, education, child protection, water and sanitation issues, among others, with technical support from UNICEF.
The bureau appealed to the general public to give maximum cooperation towards the successful completion of the project by providing necessary information to the data collectors during the exercise in all the states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
In his opening remarks during the flag off ceremony, the Statistician General of the Federation, Dr. Yemi Kale, said, “the commencement of training of carefully selected, very effective and knowledgable trainers signals another step forward in our quest to deliver a high quality MICS/NICS survey that will provide a very rich source of data for policy options by government and other stakeholders.”
The Statistician General, who was represented by Bashir Akin, a member of the NBS Governing Board, stated that, “the MICS/NICS will serve as a major source of data for tracking the success of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and also serve as a major source of data for the monitoring of the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda in Nigeria.”
He urged the trainers involved in the 18-day training programme to take the assignment serious bearing in mind the additional responsibility of training other trainers, that is on them.
Also speaking, the keynote speaker, Mr. Adeyemi Adeniran, NBS Director, Real Sector and Household Statistics Department, stated that, “MICS is a highly rated survey that provides data for the government and other planning bodies in the country to develop policies and design programmes for the welfare of women and children in Nigeria.”
Also at the ceremony, the Social Faculty Manager/Chief of Office, UNICEF, Muhammad Okorie, said owing to the importance of the MICS6/NICS survey data, his organisation is providing technical and financial support to ensure that the outcome of the survey meets global best practices.
He said the surveys “provide UNICEF with evidence with which we are better able to plan our programmes, understand where the vulnerabilities are, who has not been reached, and our interest is leaving no one behind and reaching the farthest first. So with the result of the MICS6/NICS survey, we are able to know who is left behind and then we can plan with our stakeholders in government and other multilateral and civil society organisations what interventions we can come up with to actually address the gap that exists.
“So it’s really critical that we ensure that this process holds and we are able to generate this evidence that can be trusted by everyone, that tells us where we are in terms of achieving the set goals and for planning future interventions to make better progress towards a better life and fulfilment of rights of women and children in Nigeria.”