ESARO/Global MICS4 Mop-up Workshop on Data Processing, Nairobi, 22 February-6 March 2010

Today the ESARO/Global MICS4 Mop-up Workshop on Data Processing came to a close in Nairobi, Kenya, for countries from around the world planning MICS fieldwork during the the first half of 2010.

The workshop began on February 22 and was organised at the Jacaranda Hotel, Nairobi, by UNICEF ESARO. The workshop was attended by data processing experts from the implementing agencies of 7 countries (number of participants in parentheses): Mongolia (3), Mozambique (1), Nepal (1), Somalia (3), North and Sudan (3 and 2), Suriname (2), Swaziland (2). Data processing experts from two regional offices also attended: MENARO (1) and ESARO (2).

The main facilitators of the workshop were Ivana Bjelic (MICS Data Processing Expert), Alexandar Zoric (Consultant), and Turgay Unalan (Statistics Specialist). The workshop included three main components: Data entry and editing with CSPro, preparation of analysis files and Introduction to SPSS and tabulations with SPSS, and survey archiving with the IHSN toolkit.

Bo Pedersen (ESARO MICS Coordinator), Jaychandaran Vasudevan (Consultant), Pierre Martel (Consultant), Yadigar Coskun (Consultant), and Rajesh Sharma (Consultant) also participated and supported the facilitation of sessions. Dorothy Rozga (Deputy Regional Director, ESARO) and Philip Jespersen (Regional M&E Advisor, ESARO) delivered the welcome and introduction speeches on data processing tools and the importance of quality and timely data to which capacity building through the MICS Workshops are key.

Sessions and discussions were delivered in English. At the end of the workshop, participants were presented certificates of attendance. 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 customise the survey archive using IHSN toolkit.

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