Transcript Presentation by David Yenukwa Kombat Ghana Statistical Service 26 March, 2014 Purpose  The purpose of the presentation is to highlight some suggested changes to.

Presentation by
David Yenukwa Kombat
Ghana Statistical Service
26 March, 2014
Purpose
 The purpose of the presentation is to highlight some
suggested changes to the P&R that would help to make it
more useful especially to African countries that will be
taken part in the 2020 Round of PHC
 The presentation will cover;
-organisation/census operations
-use of technology in census operations (mapping,
data collection, processing)
11/7/2015
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Institution to be response for the conduct of
a population census
 Strong recommendation for national statistical offices to be
responsible for population and housing censuses in their
countries
-Reasons
 In most developing countries, the National Statistical Office
(NSO) coordinates the National Statistical System (NSS). It will
therefore be relatively easier to mobilise resources (human and
material)from other agencies within the NSS in support of the
census.
 Experience gained by staff of the NSO in gathering, analysing
and disseminating data will be brought to bear in the census
operations. By so doing, future censuses will benefit from the
experience and institutional memory existing at the NSO.

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Coordination of the Census
 It must be recommended that heads of NSO’s should
appoint someone else to lead in the census process
 The benefits are that the head of the NSO will have
time to attend to other important issues relating to his
office but of course paying greater attention to the
census work. This recommendation was contained in
the P&R for 2010 round. But we still had some heads of
NSO’s who coordinated the census of their countries
to the detriment of other important functions of their
offices.
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Involvement of stakeholders
 Politicians-parliamentarians and political parties
 Traditional leaders,
 Civil society groups, and
 Local authorities should be involved in the census,
especially in publicity/education, enumeration and
dissemination.
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Time of the year to conduct a
census
 Due to climate change, the time of the year to
undertake census enumeration should not only be
based on past experiences, but also on current climatic
conditions.
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Census operations- Budgeting for censuses
 Under financial basis for censuses: The recommendation that all
census operations including planning, enumeration, analysis and
dissemination, be budgeted from the beginning and efforts
made to mobilize the required funds (Page 25 of P&R Rev. 2)
need to be reconsidered.
-Reasons
 some donor agencies do not indicate early enough which part of
the census they would want to fund
 Government may be reluctant to approve of the census budget if
it is found to be huge due to the inclusion of certain activities,
e.g. post census mapping and the preparation of certain
thematic reports. This could lead to delays in the start of some
preparatory activities and may eventual lead to the non-conduct
of the census.
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Census operations- Budgeting for censuses
 Countries should consider reducing reliance on donor
assistance since censuses are legally the responsibility
of national governments.
 Countries should be encouraged to explore ways of
establishing census-funding partnerships with the
private sector and civil society groups. In the case of
Ghana 2010 Census, the private sector contributed
significantly in the area of publicity.
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Census operations- mapping
 Time to create EA maps: Undertaking census mapping too
early has the risk of generating enumeration area maps that
may be outdated at the time of census enumeration.
However, due to the slow release of funds to census offices
by some governments, it is recommended that the
mapping is started early enough and provision made to
revisit the areas that were mapped early for any updates.
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Census operations- mapping
 The main reason for revisiting some of the already
mapped areas is that, in fast growing areas, some of
the enumeration area maps produced earlier in the
mapping exercise may become outdated at the time of
census due to construction of more dwelling units
some of which take short time to be completed. This is
particularly so in developing countries. Enumerators
assign to such areas are usually unable to complete
enumeration within the specified enumeration period.
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Some challenges associated with field
cartographic work
 Some countries field cartographic personnel not
getting the needed cooperation from communities
leaders due to boundary disputes arising from lack of
collaboration among boundary delimitation agencies:
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Electoral offices-create electoral areas ;
Census offices-create enumeration areas;
Local government authorities-create administrative areas
Traditional authorities- have traditional jurisdictions
National survey departments- responsible for the
production maps
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The issues
 Non-coincidence of traditional and administrative
boundaries. Traditional Authorities prefer that
administrative boundaries should coincide with the
traditional jurisdictions/boundaries- ownership of land
and traditional allegiance. Chiefs are usually not happy
that their subjects are divided between administrative units
and that natural resources in their traditional areas are
used to develop other areas. Some of them perceive that
their people may no longer pay allegiance to them.
 Non-coincidence of enumeration areas with electoral areas
 Lack of capacity of national survey offices to produce maps
(due partly to lack of funds)
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The recommendation
 Greater collaboration among the institutions
responsible for the delimitation of boundaries:
administrative, electoral and census enumeration
areas, as well as adequate consultation with traditional
authorities and national survey offices.
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Use of technology in census mapping
 Hand-drawn maps verses GIS-which way to go.
 Recognising that digitized maps play a very important
role in the dissemination of census results, country’s
should be encouraged to use GIS in census mapping.
 Digitized maps can be used for various purposes- e.g.
in data dissemination and targeting in the case of
disasters.
 GIS contribution to the development of geography
statistics / geo referencing cannot be over emphasized.
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Census tests
 Even though there is a recommendation in the 2010
P&R requesting countries to test all the activities of a
census, not all countries adhered to this advice. It is
recommended that UNSD should think of setting up a
task force to monitor the implementation of census
programmes from the planning stage through
enumeration, data processing and dissemination of
results. In this way, countries would be guided at each
stage to adhere to the recommendations as much as
possible. This could be done with the collaboration of
UNFPA
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Technology in census enumeration
 Use of PDAs where possible- cost, local conditions in
terms of energy to charge batteries, etc.
 Use of telephone and internet in supervision and
monitoring of census enumeration.
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Use of technology in data processing
 Modern technologies of data capture (OMR,
OCR/ICR) should be recommended despite its
associated challenges. The recommendation is to
decide on the technology to use for data capture early
enough so that it can be tested in the pilot census.
 The size of a country in terms of its population should
not be the determining factor.
 Paper grammage of questionnaires and control forms
should be determine in the case where the provider of
the technology is different from the company
contracted to print the census forms.
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Use of technology in dissemination
 CD ROMs, DVDs, sms text messaging, etc
 Hard copies still very important for dissemination- low
cost of publications
 Use of internet and web-base
 Power point presentations in workshop and seminars
across the countries particularly in remote areas.
 Use of traditional technology such as radio and
television to enhance substantial dissemination
coverage.
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 Thank you for your attention
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