This week, Fiji will officially launch the initial wave of its first ever MICS Plus (phone survey). MICS Plus is a new initiative under UNICEF MICS

programme to support countries in conducting longitudinal household surveys on the situation of children and women on a frequent basis, in a real-time manner.

Led by the Fiji Bureau of Statistics (FBoS), with technical support from UNICEF, MICS Plus

focuses 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. This is particularly for the vulnerable, including women and children.

“The National Statistics Office has continued to open its doors for opportunities to strengthen its role to compile and disseminate statistics that are more recent, relevant and made accessible to the users,” said the Fiji Bureau of Statistics Chief Executive, Kemueli Naiqama. “This MICS Plus Survey, through the use of phone, is an additional methodology to collect information from the public which was made possible through the increase in ownership of mobile phones and expanding mobile phone network coverage. There is an unprecedented opportunity to use telephone to collect population-based data.”

The MICS Plus survey approach is based on collection of information from the same

respondents on a frequent basis over a period of 12 months. About 2,000 Fijian households

throughout the country will be part of the six waves of data gathering, with the first wave

focusing on household energy use, water and sanitation, household livelihood and early

childhood development.

Each wave of data gathering will be followed by brief reports that will be available to the

public to highlight the information that was captured during the survey.

Fiji now follows Samoa as the second Pacific Island country to have embarked on MICS Plus.

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.