Key milestones since 1995

During the sixth round of MICS, the 300th survey is fielded in Punjab, Pakistan. The Pakistan MICS surveys are typically done at the sub-national level to gather data at the provincial level. In MICS6, the government of Pakistan intends to cover the majority of provinces with individual surveys.

The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) releases results of MICS6 within 7 months of completing fieldwork. The release is marked by high-level representation from the government, the Country Office and from UNICEF HQ through the presence of the Global MICS Coordinator, Mr. Attila Hancioglu and Deputy Executive Director, Shanelle Hall. Ms. Hall remarks, "Humanitarian assistance is making a difference in the lives of women and children across the country?But we all must do more to help every girl and boy in DPRK grow to their full potential." The survey reveals a decline in stunting but large disparities across the country. About one-third of drinking water is contaminated with E. coli and about 1 in five households do not have basic sanitation services. The results are released for the first time in MICS as an abridged final report, called the Survey Findings Report and through Statistical Snapshots of thematic areas with key messages.

In 2017, Sierra Leone, Lao People's Democratic Republic and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea go to the field, with sample sizes of 15,600, 23,299 and 8500 households selected in each survey, respectively. Ghana, Pakistan (Punjab) and the Democratic Republic of Congo would train interviewers and go to the field at the end of 2017 and beginning of 2018. All surveys elect to use CAPI.

The global MICS team pilots new tools for MICS6 in the capital of Costa Rica, San Jose and its surroundings. The objectives of the pilot are to examine how the new modules proposed for MICS6 function together and to gain experience on training on the new modules, which will feed into the Interviewers manual for MICS6 surveys. In total, questionnaires for 361 households, 261 women, 89 children under five and 140 children age 5-17 are filled using tablets and a new CAPI management system. There is for the first time a new questionnaire for children age 5-17. The pilot also includes new modules and topics such as household energy use, health insurance coverage, victimisation, child and adult functioning and a learning assessment for foundational literacy and numeracy skills. During the process, members of the government of Costa Rica are trained to use the new tools and preliminary adaptations to the standard questionnaires are done in preparation for the Costa Rica MICS6 survey.

MICS6 is launched globally and will run until 2019. The event is marked by the first MICS6 workshop on Survey Design. This event is hosted by the East and Southern African Regional Office and held in Nairobi, Kenya from October 25-31. The workshop is attended by 14 countries from the region along with Lao PDR and DPR Korea. The new round focuses on the sustainable development goals (SDGs). New tools include a questionnaire for children age 5-17, which includes a direct assessment of basic reading and numeracy skills, and new modules on child functioning, social transfers and a water quality test for E. coli.

Pakistan (Kyber Pakhtunkhwa province) is the last survey of MICS5. Fieldwork is launched in December 2016, covering a sample of approximately 22,000 households. In MICS5, Pakistan implements a total of 4 sub-national/provincial surveys covering close to 90 percent of the country's population.

On the twentieth anniversary of the MICS programme, the new website showcases close to 300 surveys in more than 100 countries - and features an enhanced user experience, access to surveys, tools from all rounds of MICS, resources and improved navigation.

A collaborative group is launched among the three-largest global survey programmes: the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS), MICS and the Living Standards Measurement Study (LSMS). The DHS-MICS-LSMS collaboration plans to increase information sharing, harmonization of tools and the fostering of methodological work. This is expected to increase efficiencies in the technical aspects of household surveys.

The fourth round of MICS is evaluated, examining if the strategic and technical structures are in place to support the quality, utility and sustainability of MICS. The evaluation finds that MICS has expanded the technical assistance available to countries and notes the adaptability of MICS to stakeholders. The evaluation also notes that the post-2105 period will be one marked with a large appetite for data at the outcome and impact levels, for which MICS is well-positioned to provide.

MICS celebrates 20 years of supporting countries to implement surveys that deliver sound statistics on the situation of children and women. The launch is marked with a special reception at UNICEF headquarters and a micro-site dedicated to the anniversary. At the time of the celebration of its 20th year, MICS has worked with 108 countries on nearly 300 surveys. MICS5 includes a total of 54 surveys - with a median sample size of 10,182 households - of which 42 are national and 12 are sub-national or for special populations. As part of MICS5, 7 survey design workshops, 5 data processing workshops and 4 data interpretation, further analysis and dissemination workshops are organized.

In MICS5, 52 surveys are implemented in 39 countries. 35 surveys are national - with a median sample size of 10,213 households. 17 surveys are sub-national or for special populations. MICS5 sees an incredible increase in CAPI use. At the beginning of the round (2012-2014), CAPI is used in only 13% of surveys. By the end of the round (2015-2016), 84% of surveys choose CAPI.

In Belize, MICS launches a dedicated field test to examine how a number of new indicators for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) work in MICS as well as to refine existing modules. The test included modules related to social protection, learning assessments for children, child and adult functioning and victimization, among others. The field test uses a number of innovative testing methods such as behaviour coding for over 150 questions, focus group discussions with interviewers, cognitive interviews with close to 40 respondents and a split-sample design in over 400 households. Results are immediately used as inputs towards the design of MICS6 tools.

Seven countries participate in the first MICS5 Survey Design Workshop - organized in Kathmandu, Nepal, by the UNICEF Regional Office for South Asia - marking the beginning of MICS workshops for the round. The countries include Kosovo (UNSCR 1244), Moldova (Transnistria), Mongolia, Nepal, Pakistan, Vanuatu and Viet Nam.

Barbados becomes the 100th country fielding a MICS survey. The survey - implemented by the Barbados Statistical Service - is one of the smallest surveys in the fifth round, with a household sample size of 3,600, yet it is one of the few sources of comparable data on children and women in the country.

During the fifth round of MICS, the 250th survey of the MICS programme is fielded in Kenya. The Kenya MICS surveys are usually done at the sub-national level to gather data on lower administrative levels. The MICS5 Kenya surveys are implemented in 3 counties: Bungoma County, Kakamega County and Turkana County. Among these, Bungoma County is the 250th survey, implemented by the University of Nairobi in collaboration with Kenya National Bureau of Statistics.

Over 200 MICS surveys and 17 years later, UNICEF officially begins support of the fifth round of MICS surveys in 2012. The Executive Directive states that "[t]he data generated by MICS5 and other nationally representative household surveys, will be critically important for final MDG reporting, MoRES, and for monitoring commitments made toward A Promise Renewed." With MICS being a major contributor of data to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the final assessment of such goals in 2015, special timetables are recommended for countries to be able to implement surveys in time to submit data for reporting.

Bangladesh, Montenegro and Panama kick off the fifth round of surveys. Montenegro implements two surveys concurrently: a national MICS and a MICS focused on the Roma Settlements. Panama, which had participated in MICS1, re-joins the MICS programme after many years, updating numerous key indicators unavailable from other sources of data. The first survey of the fifth round of MICS is Bangladesh. As the MICS5 pilot is done in Bangladesh, the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics and other national partners use this to train fieldworkers for the main MICS5 survey. The MICS5 in Bangladesh has a large sample, interviewing 51,895 households, 51,791 women and 20,903 mothers or caretakers of children under five.

In MICS4, 60 surveys are implemented in 50 countries. 43 surveys are national - with a median sample size of 10,092. In this round, the share of surveys that are sub-national or are for special populations increase dramatically, to account for 28 percent of all surveys in the programme (17 surveys in total).

After having conducted surveys in 1995, 2000 and 2006, Algeria conducts a fourth MICS survey in 2012-2013. This is the last survey of the fourth round of MICS and overlaps with surveys that are already in progress or being planned in the MICS5 round. The household sample of the Algeria MICS4 survey, 27,198 households, is more than five times the household sample in MICS1 (5,168).

MICS3 concludes with 53 surveys in 51 countries. The median sample size for this round is 6,684 households for national surveys. While 49 surveys are national, 4 are sub-national or for special populations. For the first time, MICS is implemented in a country classified as high-income (at the time of survey): Trinidad and Tobago, which had been an upper-middle income country at the time of MICS2.

Approximately eight months after the launch of the fourth round of MICS, the Togo 2010 MICS survey begins fieldwork and becomes the 200th survey of the MICS programme. This is the fourth Togo MICS, the other 3 from 1996, 2000 and 2006. The 2010 survey focusses on collecting data on key development goals such as the Millennium Development Goals and the World Fit for Children (WFFC) Declaration and Plan of Action. The indicators are presented for the country, urban and rural areas, five regions and the commune of Lom�.

MICS3 is evaluated to examine the results and possible improvements to the MICS programme. The evaluation finds that UNICEF uses its organizational structure to its advantage and that the technical framework for MICS is highly regarded. Suggestions to reinforce the primary goal of MICS as a tool for global monitoring and advocacy and for national-level advocacy as well as strengthen quality assurance mechanisms are made.

The Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Kenya and Mali field surveys in 2009. While the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and Mali are national in coverage and have sample sizes over 5,000 households, the Kenya survey covers a subregional area, the Mombasa Informal Settlements, with a sample size of 1,016 households. As the launch of MICS4 is mid-2009, only three surveys go to the field in that year. However, in 2010, a total of 23 surveys go to the field. Of these three surveys, the first to go to the field is Kenya. The Kenya survey is conducted by the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics and uses the recently concluded MICS4 pilot as a technical springboard to launch the Mombasa Informal Settlements MICS survey. Prior to this, Kenya has participated in all rounds of MICS focusing on subnational samples with the exception of MICS2 which is national in scope.

The launch of MICS4 opens by recognizing the growing appetite for data at the country and global levels, increasing the number of indicators to 161 (49 more than MICS3). MICS4 increases the frequency with which UNICEF provides assistance to MICS implementation. The Executive Directive states that: "As part of the global effort to increase the availability of high quality data, UNICEF is committed to work with countries to increase the frequency of data collection through the Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS) from every 5 years to every 3 years, with the next round of surveys scheduled to take place in 2009-2010". The MICS programme notes the increasing levels of country-ownership, innovation of the instruments and data use. Data is used to validate administrative data sources, capture the situation of vulnerable groups (e.g. Roma surveys), for sub-national monitoring and support capacity-building of the national statistical system.

A new logo to represent and brand the programme is launched. The design uses an easily identifiable graphic along with the 'MICS' acronym, which is soon used by countries and on programme materials.

The first MICS4 survey design workshop is held in Bangkok, Thailand, in July 2009. This is attended by Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Lao People's Democratic Republic, Malaysia, Mongolia, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, Thailand and Viet Nam. MICS4 would have a total of 7 survey design workshops, 6 data processing workshops and 7 data dissemination and further analysis workshops.

The Republic of the Union of Myanmar is the last country to field a survey in the third round of MICS. The survey begins field work in 2009 and ends fieldwork in 2010, overlapping with the fourth round of MICS. Estimates are provided for the national level, urban and rural areas and for the 17 states and divisions of the country. The survey interviews 29,238 households, 38,081 individual women aged 15 to 49 and 15,539 mothers or caretakers of children under five.

A new web tool is launched to quickly compile and compare results from MICS surveys. MICS Compiler uses standard indicator definitions to promote comparability across surveys and countries. The interface allows users to easily produce tables, graphs and maps of the data.

Prior to 2008, MICS had regional coordinators though by 2008, these positions are globally formalized. The UNICEF Regional Offices in Amman, Bangkok, Dakar, Geneva and Nairobi recruit regional MICS coordinators. The coordinators are tasked with coordinating the technical assistance to countries in their regions, including the recruitment of specialist consultants, the organization of regional MICS workshops and the follow-up of all survey activities. A regional coordinator for Latin America and the Caribbean is appointed in 2009.

The first Global MICS Consultation is held at UNICEF New York. The consultation is an opportunity for the Global MICS Team - which spans all seven UNICEF regions and headquarters - to meet and work face-to-face on issues, collate feedback from countries and work towards developing strategic directions for the programme. The objectives of the first workshop in New York are to: Discuss and agree on principles of coordination and technical assistance at global and regional levels; Develop ideas for tools for self-monitoring and communication; Discuss and review MICS tools; and Review existing evidence on lessons learned. Participants agree that the group should meet at least once every year and twice when appropriate, e.g. in pilot-years. Participants include: Members of the New York MICS team: Attila Hancioglu, Ngagne Diakhate, Turgay Unalan and Emma Holmberg; Regional MICS coordinators: Rhiannon James (Asia Pacific Shared Services Centre), Sarah Ahmad (Middle East and North Africa), Bo Pedersen (East and Southern Africa), Michka Seroussi (West Africa), and George Sakvarelidze (Central and Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States); Monitoring and Evaluation officers of two UNICEF Regional Offices: Christina Bierring (West and Central Africa) and Bastiaan Van't Hoff (Latin America and the Caribbean).

The third MICS manual is finalized and published for use by countries. The manual is available in print form as well as on the Internet and, for the first time, includes instructions for editors. Prior to the launch of the MICS3 manual, countries could rely on the individual chapters made available, although not in a consolidated single volume.

The Uzbekistan 2006 MICS survey initiates fieldwork in March, bringing the total number of MICS surveys to 150. This is Uzbekistan's second MICS survey, the first being in 2000. Field staff are trained for 10 days in early March 2006 using plenary presentations, demonstrations, small group activities and discussions. Children from 3 Tashkent kindergartens participated in the training on anthropometric measurements. Data for over 10,000 households, 13,000 women and 4,900 children under the age of five are collected across the entire country.

The MICS Wikipedia site provides an overview of the survey tools, current status, the countries in the MICS programme, and how the survey data are used.

In preparation for the third round of MICS, the tools and procedures developed for the round are piloted in Linden Town and Georgetown, Guyana. The questionnaires are structured with both optional and additional questions and modules. The menu of questions/modules grows immensely from the previous round, with greater numbers of modules for women and additional modules for children, including new or substantially revised modules on marriage, attitudes to domestic violence, female genital mutilation/cutting, and sexual behaviour, but also introducing child discipline and the first full household characteristics module.

The first MICS3 regional workshop, on Survey Design, is held in Tbilisi, Georgia, marking the beginning of a series of 19 regional workshops in MICS3. The MICS3 workshops focus on survey design, data processing, data analysis and report writing, and data archiving and dissemination.

In 2005, Georgia, Sierra Leone and Tajikistan are the first MICS3 surveys to be implemented. An additional 13 surveys go to the field in 2005, a large number of which come from Central and Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States. Among these three surveys, Tajikistan is the first to begin fieldwork. This is the country's second MICS survey, having participated in the second round. Implemented by the State Committee on Statistics, the survey sample is 6,968 households.

MICS launches its first official logo. The logo offers consistency in design and easy recognition of the MICS programme.

A total of 61 countries implement 65 surveys in MICS2, the vast majority of them in 2000. Of those, 60 surveys are national - with a median sample size of 5,731 households - and 5 are sub-national or for special populations.

UNICEF hosts a conference dedicated to the use of MICS data in improving the well-being of children and women. The conference publishes a book with participation from NGOs, academia, governments and international development agencies from a range of developing and developed countries.

Attila Hancioglu is appointed as the Global MICS Coordinator, a position that he still holds today.

By the time of the launch of the third round of MICS, there are significant global changes in the international development discourse that favour the continuation of country-level monitoring. This increases the need for standard tools such as MICS and supports the expansion of the range of data that MICS collects. Chief among these are the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the WFFC Declaration and Plan of Action, which have a strong focus on the well-being of children and women, the core of UNICEF's work. Additional indicators from key indicator frameworks and meetings such as United Nations General Assembly Special Session on HIV/AIDS and the African Summit on Malaria are also included in MICS, together with a number of new, emerging areas of interest to UNICEF, such as child discipline. MICS3 measures 112 indicators, an increase of 61 indicators from MICS2.

MICS begins electronic public sharing of MICS datasets on the www.childinfo.org website. Datasets are available through written electronic request. While datasets are the property of the countries implementing the surveys, countries choose to share the datasets through the MICS programme's website in an effort to reach a wider audience of data users and increase data dissemination. Electronic data sharing continues to the present.

The last survey of the second round of MICS is Libya 2003. This first MICS for Libya includes 11,900 households and is the first national survey that targets health national indicators in both urban and rural areas.

The World Fit for Children (WFFC) Declaration and Plan of Action change the monitoring environment and highlight the need to resume the MICS programme, following a few years of reduced support to the countries after the end of MICS2. The WFFC looks to UNICEF for leadership in monitoring the situation of children.

The Cuba 2000 MICS survey, the first MICS survey in Cuba, becomes the 100th survey of the MICS programme. The objectives of the survey are to provide up-to-date information on children and women on major goals, thereby complementing the national statistical system, and contribute to the strengthening of technical capacity for survey design, implementation and analysis. The survey covers the entire island and provides estimates for the country, urban and rural areas as well as four geographic regions of the country. The survey is completed with 7,263 households, 6,398 women, and 3,971 mothers or caretakers of children under five.

Leaders across countries adopt the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in New York, a key milestone in human development. The MDGs begin to influence the content of MICS, midway through the second round, with the inclusion of some MDG indicators in several surveys, which were not included in the standard questionnaires of the MICS programme.

The first round of MICS concludes successfully, with 61 countries implementing 64 surveys. Of these surveys, 61 are national - with a median sample size of 5,962 households - and 3 are sub-national - one survey in Kenya and two surveys in Somalia.

The first surveys of MICS2 go to the field, focusing on the End of Decade indicators for the World Summit for Children (WSC). In Georgia and Nigeria, data are collected from more than 15,000 households, while the sample size in Macedonia is much smaller: 1,036 households. Among these surveys, the first survey of MICS2 is Nigeria. This is the country's second MICS, which is implemented by the Federal Office of Statistics (FOS).

The first Survey Design Workshop of MICS2 is held in Bangkok, Thailand, for countries in East Asia and the Pacific and South Asia. This is followed by workshops in: Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, for countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. Amman, Jordan, for countries in the Middle East and North Africa. Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire, for Western and Central African countries. Geneva, Switzerland, for Central and Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States, and Nairobi, Kenya, for Eastern and Southern African countries. The workshops focus on providing the MICS tools to national partners and working with them on practical issues related to survey implementation.

Preparations for MICS2 begin: Survey tools such as questionnaires and manuals are piloted in Suriname in preparation for the second round of MICS, which will cover indicators of the End-decade WSC goals.

UNICEF finalizes an evaluation of the first round of MICS with the support of a group of independent experts, examining the management, implementation, outputs (data, reporting and timeliness), data use, capacity-building and the potential future role of MICS for monitoring needs. The report concludes that "Overall, the MICS has been a worthwhile process" and encourages that "the MICS should be used in the future to monitor the WSC goals and the implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC)."

The last survey of MICS1 is implemented in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. The objective of the survey is to examine the health and nutritional status of women of childbearing age and children. Key areas in the survey include breastfeeding, child health, education, immunization maternal health, micro-nutrient deficiencies and nutrition.

For the first time, UNICEF's flagship publication, The Progress of Nations, lists MICS as a key data source. The publication presents indicators from MICS for water and sanitation, oral rehydration therapy (ORT), breastfeeding, stunting and salt iodization, among others.

One of the first tools UNICEF produces to support country implementation - the MICS manual contains guidance on many stages of the survey process, including when to decide to do a survey, the indicators covered in MICS, questionnaires and questionnaire design, sampling support, and fieldwork, data processing and reporting guidelines.

As part of MICS1, the first round of MICS, the State Statistical Bureau of China, with the support of UNICEF, conducts the first MICS survey, which covers urban and rural areas with a sample size of 60,027 households across 30 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions. Data are collected on safe drinking water, sanitary facilities, iodized salt consumption, education of children, immunizations, vitamin A consumption and underweight, effectively covering the indicators of the Mid-Decade Goals for the World Summit for Children (WSC). Data from the survey are used for WSC goal monitoring through a special report entitled, 'Report on China's Child Development at the Mid-Decade of the 1990's', prepared by the Chinese National Working Committee for Children and Women. Other surveys in MICS1 also focus for the most part on measuring the Mid-Decade Goals.

The first MICS workshop is held at the Sheraton Dhaka Hotel in August 1994, and includes a number of participants from UNICEF headquarters, UNICEF regional offices and UNICEF country offices. The first round of MICS is designed to cover a mere 28 indicators.

UNICEF officially launches the Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey through an executive directive, 'Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys for the Mid-Decade Goals CF/EXD/1994 -011'. In the document, Executive Director James P. Grant highlights the need for situation monitoring, the collaborative effort that went into developing the MICS methodology and the flexibility of the MICS tools.

Nearly 160 heads of state and senior government officials commit to the World Summit for Children (WSC), pledging to develop National Programmes of Action and monitor progress on WSC goals for 2000. The WSC's Plan of Action requests that United Nations statistical offices, specialized agencies, UNICEF and other United Nations organs provide statistical assistance to countries, spearheading UNICEF's commitment to develop monitoring tools and work with countries towards these ends.