STATIN Launches Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey

The Statistical Institute of Jamaica (STATIN) on Friday (November 30) launched the 2005 Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) Report for Jamaica at the Jamaica Pegasus Hotel.
Speaking at the launch, Director General of STATIN, Sonia Jackson said the report was a compilation of data from a range of sector stakeholders, including the Child Development Agency (CDA), covering a host of issues affecting the nation’s women and children.
These include health care, education, and environmental issues.
The report also aims to provide data needed to monitor the country’s progress toward achieving the Millennium Developments Goals (MDG) by the United Nations as well, among other things.
“It is part of an international set of reports that are being done and led by UNICEF across the world, and Jamaica participated. They will provide us with information on children in the home and on women in the childbearing age. In addition, they will give us some indicators of some of the millennium development goals for these groups,” Ms. Jackson explainedThe STATIN head said it was hoped that Jamaica’s policymakers would utilize the reports and, in so doing, become cognizant of issues affecting women and children that need to be addressed.
The MICS report, Ms. Jackson said, is undertaken every five years, adding that, like 2005, STATIN was also involved in the preparation of the document in 2000.
UNICEF representative in Jamaica, Bertrand Bainvel, noted that the MICS constituted a “critical baseline for the new Planning Institute of Jamaica (PIOJ)-led National Development Plan, medium-term socio-economic frameworks, and three-year action plans.
“I urge planners and decision-makers to use the evidence-based research in both MICS and the STATIN to ensure that children are placed high on the national agenda through improved policies and programmes,” Mr. Bainvel implored.
Director General of the PIOJ, Dr. Wesley Hughes, who was guest speaker, hailed the MICS report, citing it as being “highly useful. He also pledged the PIOJ’s continued support for the survey.