[ Source : Fiji Government/ Facebook]

The first ever Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey Plus or phone survey on the situation of children and women will be launched this week.

The first phase will focus on household energy use, water and sanitation, household livelihood and early childhood development.

This program is a new initiative under the UNICEF MICS program to support countries in conducting household surveys.

This survey will collect information from the same 2000 Fijian households throughout the country in six phases of data collection over a period of 12 months.

This program is being led by the Fiji Bureau of Statistics and will focus on data gaps that need to be continuously measured over time.

The data gathered will be used to inform the policies, plans and budgets of the Government to be better aligned to the realities on the ground and the real needs of the people.

After the data is collected the brief reports will be made publicly available to highlight the information that was captured in the survey.

Fiji is the second country in the Pacific to embark on this survey.

The first wave of the Fiji MICS Plus is funded by the Government of New Zealand, with additional financial and technical support provided by UNICEF.