This week, Vietnam became the last of our four study countries to start the fieldwork for the fourth round of the Young Lives survey. Peru began back in June, followed by India in July and Ethiopia in October. Each country faces unique logistical challenges in tracking the 3,000 children and young people and their parents or caregivers that are part of the study in their nation.

One of the innovations in Round 4 is the introduction of mini laptops. This means, with the help of SurveyBe software, that the quality of data collection can be enhanced while reducing the time required for data entry and so speeding up publication of initial findings and public access to the clean data.

Once all the fieldwork is completed in spring 2014, the Round 4 survey will offer an up-to-date snapshot of the lives of the children and their families that can be compared with data collected in 2002, 2006 and 2009. This information will feed into reports that help inform and influence public policymaking to support the children and young people. Initial findings will be available mid-2014.