United Nations Population Fund and United Nations Children’s Fund support National Fertility Survey in Cuba

Havana, March 14, 2022.- The National Statistics and Information Office (ONEI) and its Center for Population and Development Studies (CEPDE) will carry out the National Fertility Survey (ENF-2022) next April, which will include people between 15 and 54 years of age from all over the country.

In preparation for this exercise, the methodological seminar to train the specialists from different regions of the country will be held from March 14 to 18.

The National Fertility Survey (ENF-22) responds to the necessity of knowing the determining factors of fertility in Cuba, one of the most important demographic phenomena for population growth and one of the main indicators of demographic change over the last decades.

One of the main goals of ENF-2022 is to provide updated evidence regarding reproductive decisions and expectations of Cuban men and women –including adolescents–, in the midst of a demographic scenario characterized by a low birth rate that does not ensure generational replacement.

The survey, which will be carried out with the support of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), will be the first survey of homes to be performed in the country after the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic and will be completed with the help of mobile data capture devices. Likewise, it will constitute a training exercise for the 2022 Population and Housing Census.

Cuba has systematically carried out the responsibility of reporting, through the National Statistics and Information Office (ONEI), the state of its national goals and its international commitments on the situation of children, using UNICEF’s global tools for national enquiries and reporting of world data on children, adolescents and women.

The ONEI has contributed to the results of the Childhood and Adolescence Statistics Group of the Statistical Conference of the Americas (SCA-ECLAC), in which UNICEF’s Latin America and Caribbean Regional Office (LACRO) conducts technical consultancy.

The history of collaboration between the ONEI and UNICEF dates back to the DevInfo project for data management and visualization. It reached a significant milestone with the publication of the Atlas of Childhood and Adolescence in Cuba, with the participation of the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences of the University of Havana (FLACSO Cuba). It has also played a part in supporting the validation and use of the data from the 5 rounds of the Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) applied in Cuba, and more recently in accompaniment tasks to the technological improvement of the generation and availability of data on children within the framework of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

At the inauguration of the Methodological Seminar of the National Fertility Survey (ENF-2022), Ms. Alejandra Trossero, UNICEF Representative in Cuba, once again stated the organization’s commitment to continuing the collaboration with the country’s efforts in perfecting the statistical system for Effective Government in the National Plan for Economic and Social Development for 2030 and the strategies to improve the demand, supply and use of data and information focused on Cuban children, adolescents and families, within the Cooperation Framework of the UN System in Cuba.

Concerning this, she highlighted the importance UNICEF places on the National Fertility Survey and its will to support it with computer-assisted personal interview (CAPI) tools and experience developed in the country with the MICS, as well as to accompany the technical and methodological tasks of processing and disseminating the results along with the UNFPA.