National Statistical Office ready to conduct 2018 census

The National Statistical Office (NSO) says it is ready to conduct the country’s 2018 Population and Housing Census (PHC).

The census is said to help Malawi come up with the nation’s current projected population and poverty indictors among other things.

In an interview with the Malawi News Agency (MANA) on Monday, NSO Statistician and Public Relations Officer (PRO) Kingsley Manda said, with funds received from United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the office has already conducted census mapping exercises with the demarcation of new Traditional Authorities (T/As) and other areas.

On the other hand, Manda said government has also bought a lot of equipment such as computers, servers and satellite imagery for the demarcation of Traditional Authority (T/As) boundaries as well as enumeration boundaries.

“With support from development partners like UNFPA, we have demarcated all new T/A boundaries and updated new and existing areas to collect data easily. Moreover, consultants have been hired and are still on the ground up to July for the exercise,” he said.

The Statistician also disclosed that the pilot phase of the 2018 PHC is expected to start in September this year where preliminary results will be ready by December.

According to Manda, this PHC will provide opportunities to many Malawians in as far as employment issues are concerned. He also said that the procedure remains the same only that previously, enumerators were using paper questionnaires while this time around they will use tablets.

“Through this Census, 30, 000 enumerators are expected to be employed across the country to collect data using Computer Assisted Personal Interviews (CAPI) where enumerators will be provided with tablets to fasten information flow unlike the previous census where they were using paper questionnaires,” said Manda.

Among other things, the PHC will also collect data on household characteristics, safe drinking water and household assets which help to come up with poverty indicators.

Malawi conducts a Population and Housing Census every 10 years

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