The Ministry of Equity, in collaboration with the Central Statistical Office, is preparing to launch the seventh round of the UNICEF-supported Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS).

Tanzia Toussaint, Director of Social Transformation, explained that the results will directly inform public policy, guide social protection programmes, and enable Saint Lucia to meet key Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

“From the Ministry’s standpoint, this provides the basis for giving us adequate data and information with regard to men, women, children, and households. We deal with poverty reduction, and we strive to put all this into context within our social protection framework,” said Toussaint.

Urmain Gray, Technical Coordinator for MICS, explained the breadth of the survey: “MICS actually captures data on children, more or less focuses on children, men, and women. We are going to cover at least 33 SDG indicators from the entire survey. So it's valuable data for the country and for policymakers.”

Preparations are already underway. According to Patrick Dujon, Statistical Assistant in the Mapping Unit, enumerator training began this week and will continue for 26 days.

“We expect to complete training by September 2, and by September 3rd or 4th, we want the enumerators out in the field to start conducting the survey,” he said.

The fieldwork will span approximately five months, concluding by December 16, just ahead of the busy holiday season.

This round of MICS will build on Saint Lucia’s past participation in the global survey programme, which was first launched by UNICEF in the 1990s and has since become one of the largest sources of internationally comparable data on children and women worldwide.