Regional MICS4 Workshop on Data Processing - Dakar, 16-29 October, 2009

The second Regional MICS4 Workshop on Data Processing was organized in Dakar (Senegal), for the countries of West and Central Africa region.

The workshop began on October 16th and concluded on October 29th. Organized at the Hotel Méridien Président by UNICEF WCARO, the workshop was attended by data processing experts from 7 countries (with numbers of participants in parentheses): Cameroon (1), Central African Republic (2), Chad (2), Democratic Republic of the Congo (2), Gambia (1), Mali (3) and Senegal (3).

The main facilitators of the workshop were Ivana Bjelic (MICS Data Processing Expert) and Trevor Croft (Consultant), and included three main components: Data entry and editing with CSPro, preparation of analysis files and tabulations with SPSS, and survey archiving with the IHSN toolkit.

Harouna Koche (Consultant) and Zacharie Sanou (Consultant) also participated and supported the facilitation of sessions. Michele Seroussi (Regional MICS Coordinator) attended selected workshop sessions. Martin Mba (Chief of the Division of Informatics and Data Bases, National Institute of Statistics, Cameroon) delivered a presentation on positive practices in survey archiving and took an active part in working groups.

Sessions and discussions were delivered in English and French, and simultaneously translated. At the end of the workshop, participants were presented certificates of attendance.

The participants were data processing experts from MICS4 implementing agencies, and came to the workshop with almost-final versions of their questionnaires. Upon return to their countries, country teams are expected to be able to customize standard MICS4 data entry and editing programs in CSPro, to prepare analysis data files and adopt tabulation syntax in SPSS and customize the survey archive using IHSN toolkit.


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