UNICEF's role in MDG monitoring
UNICEF plays a key role in monitoring progress towards achieving the MDGs, particularly in the following areas:
Global reporting on progress towards the MDGs
UNICEF has been increasingly involved in a number of activities assessing progress towards the MDGs. It has played a key role in preparing the United Nations Secretary General's (UNSG) mid-decade report, particularly on assessing progress on poverty (underweight prevalence), child mortality, immunization, maternal health, water and sanitation, malaria, and HIV/AIDS-related targets. More recently, UNICEF has cooperated with a number of agencies in preparing several detailed global progress reports on specific MDGs, including: Malaria and Children; World Malaria Report 2005; Meeting the MDG Drinking Water and Sanitation Target: A Mid-Term Assessment of Progress; and Maternal Mortality in 2005. In addition, UNICEF has produced a series of Progress for Children reports on: child survival; gender parity and primary education; immunization; nutrition; water and sanitation; and A World Fit for Children Statistical Review, launched in December 2007 during a UN General Assembly special session focusing on children.
It should be noted that UNICEF has been identified as the lead agency for annual reporting in the UNSG report on progress for all of the health-related MDG indicators, together with the World Health Organization. These include child mortality, malaria, water and sanitation, maternal health, HIV and AIDS and child malnutrition.
Inter-agency monitoring and evaluation working groups
UNICEF has led or played a key role in various interagency monitoring and evaluation working groups formed around MDG monitoring. Their primary purpose is to harmonize monitoring and evaluation work within the UN system, to address specific technical and measurement issues and to build capacity at country level. UNICEF currently plays a central role in the following groups:
Support for MDG data collection through MICS
The data and analysis in The State of the World’s Children 2008 report and the 2007 Progress for Children’s World Fit for Children Statistical Review are based on the ongoing work of UNICEF and its partners to monitor global conditions for children and women. Before the mid-1990s, critical gaps in data hindered accurate and effective analysis of the situation of children and women. Only 38 developing countries, for example, had data on whether malnutrition rates among children were rising or falling – a basic indicator of child health and well-being. To help countries fill these critical data gaps and to enable monitoring of the 1990 World Summit for Children goals, UNICEF initiated the Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS) in 1995. MICS are designed to provide quantitative data on a wide range of topics, including child health and nutrition, child protection, education, child development, maternal health, and HIV and AIDS.
Since 1995, nearly 200 MICS have been conducted in approximately 100 countries and territories. The third round of surveys, implemented in more than 50 countries during 2005–2006, provides data for 21 of the 53 Millennium Development Goal indicators. MICS3 is generating data representative of close to one in four children living in developing countries.
Together with the USAID-supported Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS), with which the data are harmonized, MICS is one of the largest single sources of MDG information. Data collected through the latest round of MICS allow for new and more comprehensive assessments of the conditions under which children and women are living.
Results from MICS 3, including national reports and micro level datasets, are widely disseminated after completion of the surveys. These are available on this website under Reports, Datasets and Archives.
Maintaining global databases and preparing joint estimates
UNICEF maintains a series of databases, several of which focus on MDG indicators, for tracking the situation of children and women. These global databases include only statistically sound and nationally representative data from household surveys and other sources. UNICEF’s databases are updated annually through a process that draws on the wealth of data maintained by UNICEF’s wide network of 140 field offices.
In addition, over the past few years, UNICEF participated in reviews of MDG indicators to improve and better document how indicators are compiled and analyzed, to improve comparability and to add additional indicators when necessary. The UN Statistics Division, which is part of the Interagency Expert Group on MDG Indicators (IAEG), coordinated the process.