Preparations for the 2022 Population and Housing Census have already kicked off in full force with the deployment of fourteen field mapping teams across the country since December 2019.
This emerged during the Advocacy and Resource Mobilisation Meeting for the 2022 Population and Housing Census held at the Rainbow Towers Hotel in Harare today.
Officiating at the meeting, Prof Mthuli Ncube, the Minister of Finance and Economic Development underscored the fact that the Government of Zimbabwe has maintained a decennial census programme sine 1982 so the next census is thus planned for August 2022.
Minister Ncube said today’s meeting marked a key milestone in preparations for the 2022 Population and Housing Census.
“Today marks a key milestone in preparations for the 2022 Population and Housing Census as we gather to update development partners on the preparations and explore resource mobilisation opportunities. In addition, we are launching the Publicity and Advocacy Strategy for the 2022 Population and Housing Census.
“I remain grateful to you, our development partners, for recognising the importance of this exercise and for providing financial resources since 1982. I understand that development partners contributed over US12.6 million for the 2012 census, which was close to 30 percent of the total census budget,” Ncube said.
Speaking at the same occasion, Professor Senerani Dorothy Hove-Musekwa, the Chairperson of the Zimbabwe National Statistical Agency said the main objective of the census mapping exercise is to subdivide the country into small Standard Enumeration Areas (EAs), each of which will be assigned a unique identification code on the basis of the country’s administrative boundaries.
“This exercise, which is also key to the successful implementation of the Population Housing Census, is going to last for about two and a half years. In conformity with technological advancement and as part of the principles and recommendations for United Nations 2020 Round of Population and Housing Censuses, the country’s 2022 round has adopted the Computer Assisted Personal Interviewing (CAPI) approach during both the field mapping and census enumeration exercises,” Prof Hove-Musekwa said.
It is expected that with CAPI, the results will be produced much earlier than before. However, CAPI requires more financial resources as it entails the acquisition of tablets and related equipment, establishment of a Geographic Information Systems (GIS) laboratory as well as training costs.
Dr. Esther Muia, the UNFPA Zimbabwe Country Representative said population censuses provide current information on demographic and related socio-economic characteristics of the population at national and sub-national levels.
“As UNFPA, we remain committed to work with all stakeholders in the provision of quality data for planning and policy implementation through the Census and other key surveys that are our flagship, for example, the Demographic Health Survey,” Dr. Muia said.