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Roselyne Sachiti : Features Editor

Preliminary results of the Zimbabwe Demographic Health Survey (ZDHS) were released in Harare last Friday. The survey, the sixth of its kind to be conducted by the Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency, was conducted between July and December 2015 with support from Government and development partners. The final report is expected to be released in October this year.A total of 11 196 households were selected for inclusion in the 2015 ZDHS, and of these, 10 534 were successfully interviewed.

The survey was conducted in the country’s 10 provinces in both urban and rural areas.

Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) are nationally-representative household surveys that provide data for a wide range of monitoring and impact evaluation indicators in the areas of population, health, and nutrition.

The latest results indicate that while still high, Zimbabwe’s maternal and child health, adolescent sexual reproductive health, family planning and general knowledge on HIV and Aids, have greatly improved in the past five years.

ZDHS findings also show that maternal mortality has declined to 651 deaths in every 100 000 deliveries from 960 deaths in every 100 000 live births recorded in the 2010-2011 survey. This translates to an average of seven deaths per day.

The number of women who deliver with assistance from a skilled birth attendant has also increased from 66,2 percent to 78 percent while the figure of women who visit health facilities as required during pregnancy has also increased from 64,8 percent to 75,7 percent in the past five years.

Although the number of children who were vaccinated in line with the recommended child health practice has improved with an average of 73 percent coverage throughout the country, the ZDHS showed that at least one in every 15 children who were born in the past five years died before reaching their fifth birthday.

ZDHS also showed that 36 percent of children under five years of age were stunted, nine percent of which were severe. Children who are stunted are too short for their age.

An additional four percent of all children in the same age group were wasted while 10 percent were underweight.

In Zimbabwe, Government knows too well why data is important in accelerating development outcomes.

First, government has the role of providing merit goods like mass immunizations and for them to do so, they need to know the number of people they should target.

Second, in order to allocate resources, and make strategic decisions and fulfil this merit good around health services, governments need reliable high quality data.

Health and Child Care acting Secretary Dr Gibdon Mhlanga outlined the importance of data in planning and implementation of health programmes.

“This reporting of community events completes our picture on the health status of the citizenry, and therefore allows us to plan effectively towards our mandate of keeping the population of Zimbabwe in good health.

“The results provide the sector with a better picture of health in the country,” said Dr Mhlanga.

Zimstat Director General Mr Mutasa Dzinotizei said based on the indicators, comprehensive data should provide important insight into the health status of men, women and children.

“Such information is important for planning, designing and fine tuning health interventions for better impact.

“Government will use the information for monitoring and evaluation of health programmes with the aim of improving the living conditions of the population.

“Other organisations which include development partners, private sector, rural and urban councils, research institutions, universities and individuals are also in need of the information to underpin their interventions in the health sector at various strata of government, from district to national level,” he added.

United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) representative Mr Cheikh Tidiane Cisse said the new data shows how Zimbabwe continued to make progress in reducing the burden of some global health challenges in the country though there is need to address areas that were still lagging behind.

“The 2015 ZDHS key findings will certainly inform our work in various areas such as maternal and child health, family planning, HIV/Aids, gender based violence and adolescent sexual reproductive health,” he said.

He added that it has not all been gloom and doom as on a positive development, the ZDHS is showing that more young people are protecting themselves better against HIV.

The international community is also responding to the importance of comprehensive data collection for development.

At the Women Deliver conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, Melinda Gates, co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, announced that the foundation would commit $80 million over the next three years to close gender data gaps and help accelerate progress for women and girls around the world.

Alongside the Gates Foundation’s commitment, partners across governments, non-profit and philanthropic organisations also agreed upon a new statement of principles regarding gender data and its importance for accelerating development outcomes.

Why data?

Data holds power: It demonstrates the size and nature of social or economic problems, and brings clarity around who is falling through the cracks. Through reliable data, women and girls’ lives can become visible and counted, helping to inform programming and hold leaders to account.

However, a lack of comprehensive, current information about women and girls, especially in developing countries, hinders efforts to advance gender equality. If the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals are to be reached by 2030, the world must advance its knowledge about women and girls’ lives and livelihoods, their welfare and well-being, and their contributions to their communities, countries and economies.

“By adopting the SDGs the world agreed to achieve gender equality by 2030. But we cannot close the gender gap without first closing the data gap,” said Melinda Gates. “We simply don’t know enough about the barriers holding women and girls back, nor do we have sufficient information to track progress against the promises made to women and girls. We are committed to changing that by investing in better data, policies and accountability.”

She said the Gates Foundation’s new $80 million commitment would support efforts that will fill critical gender data gaps, including knowing how much time women and girls spend on unpaid work around the world, and what implications this has on their life chances and choices, such as completing education, getting jobs or starting businesses.

“The funding will also improve the accuracy and reliability of data collection, which can reveal at a large scale who owns assets like land, property or credit.

“It will equip decision makers with more timely and clearer evidence about programmes and interventions that are working and those that are not so they can be redesigned quickly and more effectively,” she added.

The funding, according to Gates, will also support civil society in holding leaders to account for the commitments they’ve made to women and girls, helping maintain the political will to achieve gender equality.

It will also amplify and strengthen organisations and platforms that keep gender equality at the centre of global and national development efforts.

UN Women Executive Director, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka said: “The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development aims ‘to leave no one behind’. To bring all women and girls to the finishing line in 2030 at the same time as everyone else, we must be able to target them and their needs, and see what progress we are making. Through our new flagship programme initiative ‘Making Every Woman and Girl Count,’ UN Women commits to supporting countries to improve the production, accessibility and use of gender statistics.”

Explaining the importance of data, Women Deliver CEO Katja Iversen said everyone wins if investments in women and girls are made.

“Data can prove it and has the power to build accountability, create effective policies and help us meet our long-term development goals.

“Women count. It’s time for us to start counting them and counting them in,” she said.

Plan International chief executive officer Anne-Birgitte Albrectsen said because of unavailability of comprehensive and current data, many girls were invisible.

“In many countries, the data we need on girls and women doesn’t exist yet, is incomplete or is not being compiled effectively.

“Millions of girls are left invisible so we don’t have the information to persuade governments to take steps to end abuse, child marriage and the early pregnancies that lead to thousands of maternal deaths,” she said.