Zim’s first digital census enumeration begins

PHILLIMON MHLANGA

Zimbabwe’s 10 day population and housing census enumeration exercise begins today and runs until  April 30, 2022.

Training of enumerators for the country’s first digital census ended on Monday.

The data from the country’s first digital census will inform the country’s policy direction. The census is carried out every 10 years.

This year’s exercise will  be unique  in that the census  will be carried out using  tablets known as Computer Assisted Personal Interviewing  (CAPI) instead of paper and pen which was used over the years.

The data collection from CAPI will be sent to the central server for further processing.

Consequently, results are expected to be released within six months. In previous censuses, results were released after close to two years.

ZIMSTATS director general, Taguma Mahonde said it was all systems go.

“People are encouraged to take note of individuals who were present during the night of Wednesday 20th April 2022, which will be the reference point for enumeration. In undertaking the exercise, enumerators will direct questions to heads of households or their designated representatives with all information relating to persons who spent  the census night in the household,” Mahonde said yesterday.

Mahonde added: “Important to note is that all individuals who would have spent the census night in hotels, lodges, hospitals, police stations, prisons and other collective institutions shall be enumerated  on census night including those  in transit and other floating populations. Given the foregoing, ZIMSTATS is requesting for cooperation from the general public to enable enumerators to undertake their work.”

He said all information collected during the population and housing census  enumeration exercise are confidential in line with the Census and Statistics Act (Chapter10:29) and be used  for statistical purposes only.

This year’s national census, which will be the 5th  since independence.

Zimbabwe last held  its census in 2012. The country’s population was  13 061 239, reflecting a 10.9% increase from the previous census which had been held in 2002.

For the first time, Zimbabwe will be conducting a census in April as previously censuses were held in August.