CSO to survey women, children

Accurate data is needed to inform the decisions of government and policymakers, document progress and improve lives.

Representative of the UNICEF Eastern Caribbean Office Dr Aloys Kamuragiye made the point as he spoke at the launch of the training programme for a multiple indicator cluster survey (MICS), which will collect data on the status of women and children in TT.

International MICS consultant Jacqueline Montique Small said MICS has become the largest source of statistically sound and internationally comparable data on women and children worldwide, since its inception in 1995. She said MICS was a major source of data on the UNs Millennium Development Goals (MDG) indicators and will continue to be a major data source during the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda to measure Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) indicators.

Central Statistical Office director of statistics Sean O'Brien said the CSO, in collaboration with UNICEF, will be doing the survey with the assistance of over 70 field staff, 60 from Trinidad and ten from Tobago, who will be trained over five weeks, from March 2 to April 3.

The survey will begin on April 4 in both Trinidad and Tobago. O'Brien said the survey will be done at 7,200 households, which will encompass a random, nationally representative sample, and therefore not all communities will be sampled.

The survey will involve intense and personal interviews and will collect data on households, women, and children. Topics covered will include demographic characteristics, literacy and education; clean water access, sanitation and hygiene; water quality; energy use; reproductive health; nutrition; child mortality, health, development, protection and functioning; victimisation; social transfers; subjective well-being; mass media and information and communication technology (ICT); tobacco and alcohol use as well as HIV/AIDS and sexual behavior. Water and salt tests will also be carried out.

Kamuragiye said this is the fourth time MICS will be carried out in TT, as it was used to collect data in 2000, 2006 and 2011. He said the process is technologically innovative and will collect data for the first time in TT on social transfers, child disability, parental involvement and other topics. It will also provide data that would help address the current education crisis in TT.

Samples collected will be tested by UNICEF, as the Eastern Caribbean Office will be using its resources to assist the CSO. Kamauragiye said UNICEF will also help the CSO to better mine the data collected, after the initial reports.

Tobago House of Assembly (THA) representative Desmond Perry said he was excited about the data collection and hoped the survey would provide key indicators. He said MICS was another step in the continued relationship-building between the CSO and the THA. He said it was important that the data collected be accurate.

Deputy Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Planning and Development Ayleen Ovid said the field staff would play an important role in collecting data that would empower the government and planners to make evidence-led decisions that would lead to positive changes in the lives of women and children.

She said the importance of the data collected by the enumerators could not be underestimated, as it could only be collected from individuals. The government is implementing the UN Sustainable Development Goals to 2030, and the data collected will be used to measure progress towards a number of these goals. For example, knowing the prevalence of underweight children under five will assist in eradicating extreme poverty and hunger.

Kamuragiye said investing in data collection in every generation helps government account for what it delivered to the people, to document change that is happening, and show improvement and progress towards goals.