KARACHI, Jan 5: The Sindh Government, through the financial and technical assistance of the UNICEF, is initiating the Multiple Indicators Cluster Survey (MICS) in all the 16 districts to establish a credible baseline for socio-economic status at district level.

According to official sources, the MICS is a tried and tested methodology that has been used by 100 countries as a household survey tool to fill gaps in the data essential for reporting on the situation of children and women and relating to the goals set at the World Summit for Children in 1989.

The MICS methodology has been developed by the Unicef in collaboration with the World Health Organization, United Nations Statistics Division, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and United States Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The survey results will be used to establish child-focused bench-marking for measuring progress and in the preparation of district profiles. Survey results will also form the basis for future dialogue on social policy and goal setting for poverty alleviation and social development in the province.

The information will be useful for district governments, line departments, provincial planning institutions, politicians, researchers and civil society organizations.

The provincial government has already notified a steering committee which is headed by additional chief secretary and includes secretaries of all line departments as members in addition to the representatives of Unicef, Federal Bureau of Statistics and Applied Economics Research Centre, Karachi University. The Unicef has committed US$400,000 to cover the survey cost.

The survey includes critical indicators, such as mortality rate, infant mortality rate, maternal mortality rate, use of safe drinking water, net primary enrolment, children out of school, literacy rate, child birth care, birth registration, employment status, expenditure by a household on health, education and water, etc.

The MICS will be the first district-based household socio-economic survey covering all districts with the largest representative sample size of 23,000 household.

The governor or chief minister of Sindh will be invited to formally launch the listing process of the survey in the next few days. — APP