Enumerators Cross Hills and Plains to Track 11,000 Households in Zimbabwe 

If the streams, plains, hills and trees of the Gandanzara area of Makoni district had names and faces, chances are Sylvia Saruchera would know each by its title and characteristics, for she has spent the past two months criss-crossing the area daily. At times, visiting the same household more than once.

This is because she is part of a large pool of enumerators and measurers who have been deployed across the country to track close to 11,000 households as part of the fourth round of the Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS).

Done previously in 2009, 2014 and 2019, the survey tracks over 40 indicators which include, but are not limited to, water and sanitation, nutrition, health, education and child protection.

The daily tracking that Saruchera now undertakes is a result of an intensive 31-day training that she – and thousands of other enumerators dotted around the country – undertook before the commencement of the exercise, which has been running since November and due to run its full course of data collection in January. The preliminary results are due in April 2026, with the full report expected in the second half of that year.

Unicef’s Deputy Country Representative, Fiachra McAsey, speaking recently in the Chapatorongo area of Nyanga, explained and emphasised the importance of MICS, saying in part: “This exercise, a bilateral engagement with the Government of Zimbabwe, complements the National Census survey as MICS goes deeper and seeks answers that are not dwelt with during the national population count. As you can see, we are in this part of Zimbabwe today, which, as you can understand, is quite remote; it took us some time to arrive here. But that is the strength of this survey, it can move from the high-density urban areas all the way to remote rural communities, allowing us to understand comprehensively what life looks like in every corner of the country.”

Several hundred kilometres away from Chapatorongo – in the Gandanzara area of Makoni district – journalists drawn from the country’s various media houses had the chance to witness first-hand Saruchera and her companions going through the meticulous daily data collection exercise.

“The data collection,” Saruchera explained, “starts with the selected household answering the opening questionnaire. This takes, on average, some 45 minutes. The answers derived from this questionnaire then inform the next stages.

“If, for example, there is a child under five years, then I inform my supervisor, who in turn asks a measurer to visit the household and measure the child. The measuring is basically taking the child’s height, measuring the middle upper arm circumference and weight. Some parameters guide the measurer in assessing the health and welfare of that child, informing us if there might be challenges related to obesity, stunting, or underweight. We also check for the presence of oedema.

“In other households, there might be a need to do a water quality test, and the same measurer will take samples from the household’s water source, which can either be a well, borehole or river. The sample from the water source is tested against another sample from the household’s storage facilities, to ascertain if there is any contamination, whether it is at the source or storage.”

Besides the water test and child follow-up questionnaires, if the household has a woman, or women, between the ages of 15 and 49, then follow-ups are a requisite. “If the household has been done by a man, and has suitable women candidates, then the follow-up questionnaires will be handled by a woman enumerator, as some of the questions are of a personal nature. Conversely, if a household has a woman and has an eligible man, that is between the ages of 15 and 49, then that household is passed to a male enumerator.”

Tendai Chitsamba, a provincial statistician with Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency, ZimStat, said MICS is a robust country-wide exercise that seeks to inform national policy, enabling the country to generate quality, accurate and reliable data. This data then informs the Government of Zimbabwe on where to invest, as well as helps decision-makers to understand the various dynamics between urban and rural settings.

“As we are here in Manicaland, there are other teams spread around the country doing the same exercise. The survey started at the same time and will end at the same time, that is, in January next year. We are going to take a break on December 20, for the festive season, and soon after, we will begin the survey.”

With ZimStat as the technical partner, MICS has been made possible through a partnership agreement reached between the Government of Zimbabwe and UNICEF-Zimbabwe, in which the government has so far contributed around US$480,000 towards the expected expenditure of 2,3 million, with UNICEF-Zimbabwe contributing 1,2 million and other UN agencies adding about US$250,000.

After the data collection, the next stage will be data analysis, report writing and dissemination.