LETTICIA MAGOMBO
The Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency (ZIMSTAT) says the introduction of the data quality management team has improved both the accuracy and efficiency of the population and housing census enumeration, currently underway.
Speaking at a press conference this week, the ZIMSTAT director for production statistics, Mationesa Phiri, said there has been little room for error in accounting for the population, largely due to real time monitoring of enumeration.
“As the data is being collected we have real time monitoring of that data where we will also be checking on errors and inconsistencies,” Phiri said.
She added: “(We) know that as data is being collected our enumerators have our supervisors, however, we are also doing this process so that if anything was missed by an enumerator during data collection and also missed by the supervisor then we can run through the data that is being collected and give feedback to the field staff for them to check on any inconsistencies that would have been picked by the team.
“The process is real time on a daily basis. We are downloading our server, running through the dash files, giving feedback by province and districts until it gets back to the respective enumerators, where that data needs attention. When the data gets there we make sure that we get feedback from the provinces and when we give them the list of errors that would have been picked from the data set. We also have them giving us the feedback and when they give us the feedback we then run the data set again to ensure that those errors have been addressed.”
This has allowed for errors such as incomplete forms or incomplete households to be identified quickly and addressed within a short span of time.
Timing of interviews is also able to be monitored to ensure that adequate time is given to each person to get the most accurate answers for enumeration processes.
ZIMSTATS director general, Taguma Mahonde said as of April 25, 2022 the total population amounted to 5 785 279 with average household size being 4.0%.
Interviews conducted were 1 585 746 with 1 456 088 being completed, 129, 658 being partially completed and 904 being recorded as duplicates.
Mahonde however, pointed out that the process had not been all smooth and had met with several challenges.
“We still have some challenges because of the rains for example in Matabeleland North and Midlands provinces. We have had challenges of flooding which has restricted our access. However, we have managed to deal with those issues using longer routes to make sure that our enumerators access those tenants,” Mahonde said.
He added: “Our network connectivity is not the same throughout the country. So, you will find that in urban areas network connectivity will not be a challenge and as a result data collected has been easily received to our servers. However, when we go to some remote areas connectivity becomes a challenge so we are currently busy making sure that our enumerators who are in areas where there is no connectivity take tenants to areas where there is connectivity so that they can receive their data,” he said.
The exercise runs up to April 30.
