The new round of MICS will officially launch with a side event to the 54th United Nations Statistical Commission at UNICEF House on 2 March 2023.
Many new topics and initiatives are being introduced in MICS7. With expanding content, the MICS programme will continue its global leading role with up to 40 SDG indicators and inclusion of nearly 85 per cent of all household survey-based indicators of UNICEF’s Strategic Plan. New initiatives include the longitudinal phone surveys in the form of MICS Plus, geocoding, integration with administrative data sources, and progress made in survey data processing and quality assurance processes.
MICS7 will no longer be based on one set of standard questionnaires. The new questionnaire architecture will have relatively short Base Questionnaires - for households, women, men, under-5s and children aged 5-17 - populated with universally applicable standard modules, many of which produce data on SDG indicators. Several complementary topics will also be offered, which can be added onto the Base Questionnaires, based on survey scope, objectives, priorities, content constraints, funding availability and other concerns.
As with previous rounds, MICS7 will be rolled out with Regional Survey Design workshops, starting in late March with the first workshop in Belgrade, Serbia. Initially planned to begin in 2022, MICS7 was postponed because of delays in completion of many MICS6 surveys due to the COVID-19 pandemic and ongoing work on a new business model.
The MICS website will be progressively populated with MICS7 documents as they become available. Major updates should be expected by the end of March.