About 200 participants including both enumerators and measurers attended a training from 5 June to 5 July in Thalad, Vientiane Province. Participants were from central, provincial and district levels of the offices of statistics, health and education. 58 per cent of them were women.
Trainers from Lao PDR with technical support from the Global MICS Programme, provided essential knowledge and skills in survey related definitions, concepts, modules, questionnaires, survey ethics, interview techniques, and measurement of anthropometry, anemia and water quality testing to participants during the training.
The field data collection started in Vientiane Capital from 7 to 8 July where all 25 teams collected data from 25 clusters using Computer-Assisted Personal Interviewing (CAPI) to improve efficiency and effectiveness. The process enables users to monitor field work and test the data exchange between survey teams and the central office. In order to improve field data collection, a day of feedback after two days of data collection is organized.
Currently, 25 teams are collecting data from the planned 1,170 clusters of 24,300 households in all 18 provinces of the country. The field data collection is scheduled from 7 July to early November 2017. Each team consists of one supervisor, four interviewers and two measurers. The specific measurements were added during this round to get more information about anemia among children under five and women of child bearing age 15-49, as well as testing of water quality.
The LSIS II is a nation-wide household based survey that generates data at the provincial level, disaggregated by age, residence, sex, wealth quintile and ethnic group. LSIS II will generate up-to-date information needed for the selection of data on key social development indicators to monitor the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It will also provide data for the 8th National Socio-Economic Development Plan (NSEDP), the provincial social development indicators, and data for graduation from Least Developed Countries. Results from this survey are expected within the next 6–9 months.