Development partners, through financial and technical assistance, are supporting the Lao Social Indicator II (LSIS) survey and its collection of quality national data to monitor the national development plan and SDGs in Laos.

The Memorandum of Understanding on the implementation of LSIS II was signed in Vientiane on Sep 15 by Deputy Minister of Health and Vice Chair of the National Steering Committee of LSIS II Dr Phouthone Meuangpark, Deputy Minister and Head of the Lao Statistics Bureau Samaychanh Boupha, United Nation Children’ Fund Representative Ms Hongwei Gao, and United Nations Population Fund Representative Ms Frederika Meijer.

Under the agreement, the LSIS II will be mainly implemented by the Lao Statistics Bureau in collaboration with the Ministry of Health (MoH), the Ministry of Education and Sports (MoES), certain relevant line ministries, and development partners including UNICEF and UNFPA.

“LSIS II will benefit from the standard methods used worldwide, which will be based on the updated MICS6 modules with added on modules from the Demographic Health Survey. By using the same methodology, the surveys can be compared over the years, allowing for trend analyses and comparisons to other countries,” said Mr Samaychanh Boupha.

“The LSIS II will provide a wealth of data in a number of areas about the socio-economic situation of children, women, men and households.  It will cover multiple indicators on health, nutrition, education, water, sanitation, marriage, sexual activity, fertility, mortality, contraception, HIV/AIDS, child protection and the use of mass media and information technology,” said Mr Samaychanh Boupha.

“These data and information will be significant for the monitoring and implementation of the 8th National Socio-Economic Development Plan (NSEDP) and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).”

“We hope that by early next year, data collection will be initiated with the primary results of the survey being disseminated at the end of 2017.  A final report of the survey will be published in early 2018,” he added.

The Lao Social Indicator Survey-LSIS is a nation-wide household based survey covering all 18 provinces.  It will generate provincial level data broken down by age, residence, sex, wealth and ethnic group.

“Why is it important? Well, this second survey will give us up-to date information needed for the selection of data on key social development indicators to monitor the SDGs,” said Ms Hongwei Gao.

“LSIS II will also create a baseline for the national development plan and priorities such as the 8th NSEDP or the provincial core social development indicators data.  Lastly, LSIS II will also provide data for graduation from Least Development Country status,” said Ms Hongwei.

She said that under the strategy for the Development of National Statistics System 2010-2020, every five years the Lao government is committed to conduct follow up surveys. Therefore, the LSIS II is planned to be implemented in 2017-2019 to generate new data.

Source:
courtesy of KPL NEWS AGENCY

by Soukthavy Thephavong

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