Sunyani, Aug. 30, GNA - Dr Philomina Nyarko, Deputy Government Statistician, on Monday launched a 14-day training workshop in Sunyani for the fourth round of the Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS4) with malaria Biomarkers.

She charged the 160 trainees as field personnel to offer their best fo= r the success of the exercise. Dr Nyarko urged them to abide by the set of rules and regulations governing the training workshop and expressed the hope that the training workshop would enhance their skills and result in the collection of high quality data. The training's specific objectives include, explaining the context, background and rationale of MICS4 survey to the participants, and training them to understand the data collection instruments such as the eligibility criteria, skip patterns, question sequence, logic and the purpose of each question. Dr Nyarko explained that the MICS was among data sources critical for supporting current international and regional initiatives aimed at promotin= g the economic and social well-being of Ghanaians.

"As we all know, Ghana is experiencing numerous challenges in variou= s sectors of the economy. In response to this a number of measures have been put in place to address the challenges emanating from globalization, climat= e change, civil war, shortage of food and diseases", Dr Nyarko said. In order to address these challenges, she said, the establishment and development of reliable and timely data had become more crucial than ever before. She explained that MICS was first introduced by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) in 1995 and then repeated in 2000 and 2005 but t= he first one conducted in Ghana was in 2006 when the country took part in the third round of MICS as part of global effort to increase high quality data.

Dr Nyarko explained that in recognizing the need to have data at the district level for the evaluation of the High Impact Rapid delivery (HIRD) interventions, a supplementary MICS (based on the third round of MICS) was however conducted in four regions - Upper East, Upper West, Northern and Central Regions), as well as the two largest metropolitan areas of Accra an= d Kumasi in the last quarter of 2007 and first quarter of 2008.

She stressed that in keeping with the project's implementations schedule, it was time to update the available country data through a fourth round of the MICS. MICS4 aims at providing indicators that can be used to monitor progres= s on the health of the population, with a special focus on women and children in Ghana. Specific areas of focus include education, poverty and child deprivation, reduction, child protection, malaria in children and HIV/AIDS, she said, adding the findings of MICS4 would also provide up-to-date information on progress made towards the achievement of the goals set-out b= y the Ghana Poverty reduction strategies (GPRS 1 and 11), the Ghana Shared Growth and Development Agenda and other national development plans, as well as the Millennium development Goals.

The Ghana Statistical service is collaborating with the Ministry of health to implement the survey, with funding and technical support from UNICEF, USAID, CDC and Macro.

About 12,150 households will be enumerated during the survey and Dr Nyarko emphasized that the uniqueness of the MICS4 was that it had enhanced malaria module with a Biomarker component.

This meant that blood samples of children under five years would be collected for malaria and anaemia testing, she said, adding MICS4 also had modules on water sanitation and hygiene and national health insurance coverage.

Mr David Mensah delivering a speech on behalf of Dr Constance Bart-Plange, Programme Manager of National Malaria Control Programme (NMCP) said Ghana was hyper-endemic regarding malaria transmission, which implied that malaria transmission was intense throughout the year across the country. He said the entire population of 24 million was at risk and the socio-economic burden of the disease was enormous and every year the state and her development partners spent substantial resources on malaria control= .. He urged the trainees to appreciate the important role they were going to perform as their contribution to solving a national problem that had ove= r centuries been an obstacle to development. "It is the hope of the NMCP that each one of us will exhibit commitm= ent and seriousness to ensure the success of the exercise", Mr Mensah said. Ms Jane Mwangi, Monitoring and Evaluation specialist, on behalf of UNICEF's representative in Ghana, Dr Iyabode Olusanmi, said the data collected in MICS4 would be used to show status and also identify the most vulnerable and poor populations in a bid to reach them with basic social services they deserved.

She said UNICEF was committed to track progress of the situation of children and women through data collection and analysis, as well as the promotion of sound planning and monitoring of policy results. The specialist said the data that would be collected during the survey field work would help the government to monitor the progress made towards the targets set for national and international commitments on children and women issues. Ms Mwangi urged the participants to show vigilance and to aim to collect data of high quality that would enable the Government and other partners to develop appropriate strategies and programmes that would addres= s the current children and women issues. Mr Eric Pwadura, who represented the Director General of the Ghana AID= S Commission, presided.