United Nations
Population Fund
Opening Address
UNFPA/ PARIS 21 International Expert Group Meeting
Mechanisms for Ensuring Continuity of 10-Year Population Censuses: Strategies for Reducing Census Costs
Ms Thoraya Obaid
Executive Director
Pretoria
26–29 November 2001
Honourable Mr Trevor Manuel, Minister of Finance, South Africa, Mr Pali Lehohla, Statistician-General of South Africa, Government and Provincial Government Officials from South Africa, Ms Deborah Guz, OECD-DAC PARIS 21, distinguished experts and colleagues,
It is really a privilege and great pleasure for me to welcome you, in absentia, on behalf of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), to this International Expert Group Meeting on Mechanisms for Ensuring Continuity of 10-Year Population Censuses: Strategies for Reducing Census Costs. I would especially like to thank the Government of South Africa and, in particular, Mr. Pali Lehohla, for hosting this meeting.
I would especially like to state at the outset that this meeting is a true partnership endeavour. In addition to the support of the South African Government and PARIS 21, UNFPA has also received strong support in organising this meeting from EUROSTAT, the U.S. Bureau of the Census, the United Nations Statistical Division and the World Bank. This joint effort gives a strong and clear message: working in partnerships is imperative for ensuring successful population censuses.
Indeed UNFPA, working jointly with a number of partners, has played a leadership role in supporting censuses in developing countries and in countries in transition for over three decades. Apart from its direct support at the country level, UNFPA provides regional technical support through a network of Country Technical Services Teams (CSTs), and interregional support through a team of experts at U.N. Statistical Division.
Value of Censuses
The value of a population census for a country should be self-evident, despite the large costs involved. The industrialized countries have conducted censuses every decade for more than 200 years. A census is the primary source of information about the number and characteristics of the population and, in many countries census counts provide a crucial input for sub-national resource allocation. Census data provide a foundation for planning and good governance, for monitoring development progress, and for providing direction for the future. A lack of census data is seriously hampering planning activities across a broad range of sectors in many countries, especially the measurement of progress towards national and international development goals. This is particular true as governments work towards walking the road map of the Millennium Development Goals, which include putting indicators into place and monitoring implementation by partnership of national actors.
National development plans, Common Country Assessments (CCA) and Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers, among other country-led processes, provide an opportunity to promote the value of censuses. Adequate gender-sensitive poverty and social assessments are not possible without sex-disaggregated information on the size, distribution and characteristics of the population.
Despite the obvious importance of census data, we are concerned that the 2000 round of censuses is comparing less favorably than the 1990 round. For example, several countries in Sub-Saharan Africa have postponed their censuses, thereby increasing the interval of time since the previous census to more than 10 years. Some countries have secured funding at a very late stage in their census preparations, thereby forcing compromises in decision making; while others are experiencing funding gaps that are slowing post-enumeration activities and curtailing plans for the dissemination of census results.
UNFPA Support for Population Censuses
Many countries across all continents would have been unable to conduct censuses without financial and technical assistance provided by UNFPA. This has ranged from support for large parts of census operations, particularly in countries conducting their first modern census, to highly technical elements of capacity building in other countries. Over time countries have absorbed an increasing amount of the census costs as they have developed national capacity. For UNFPA, with many competing demands on its limited resources, coupled with a reduction in core income, supporting countries census-taking activities has become ever more challenging.
Sometimes governments allocate limited amounts for censuses with the expectation that international assistance will provide the balance. Many countries organise donors’ meetings for this purpose, and the outcome has proved to not always be successful. Meanwhile the census time-schedule continues to move forward. Experience shows that governments and donor agencies often allocate funds just prior to the actual enumeration. This can lead to compromises in the decision-making process and impact on the quality of census operations.
The high and rising costs of censuses, coupled with shrinking public sector budgets in many developing countries, have put a serious question mark over their future. Cut backs in funding for international development assistance that, in the past, have been a major source of funding for censuses, have exacerbated the situation. For all these reasons, we all need to increase our common efforts to mobilise resources, from all sources including foundations and the private sector, for census programmes. This requires active advocacy, within countries and outside, and public information programmes on the value of census data. We also need to focus well on strategies that lead to reducing census costs without compromising the integrity of the census.
Within countries, and across the donor community, there is a need to advocate for conducting regular censuses and securing the necessary funding. Much more needs to be done by line ministries to support the efforts of national statistical offices in making the case to finance ministries for supporting national censuses. Similarly, UNFPA considers that international agencies that use national census data for a variety of purposes could help support the case of UNFPA with all its partners to convince bilateral and multilateral donors to provide additional support for censuses.
I look forward to reviewing the outputs of this meeting, in particular recommendations for strategies to reduce census costs, a priority research agenda on issues related to reducing census costs, and a plan for preparing national and international census advocacy materials.
In closing, I would like to reiterate how much UNFPA looks forward to learning from this meeting about innovative approaches countries are adopting in mobilising support for their population censuses and how national census programmes are reaching to all national and international stakeholders. UNFPA is fully committed to partnerships with countries, PARIS 21,
the EU, the US Census Bureau and agencies within the UN system, based on comparative advantages and meeting priority needs.
I thank you all again most sincerely and wish you a successful meeting.
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