Africa urged to embrace Tech to improve quality of census data collection, dissemination
African countries should embrace new technological advancements if the continent is to improve the quality of census data collection and dissemination, experts have said.
African experts and policymakers, taking part in a five-day high-level meeting on supporting electronic data collection and dissemination in censuses which is underway from July 1 to 5 in Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa, emphasized that incorporating new technologies in during data collection and dissemination procedures of national census is crucial in order to draw accurate results.
“Population and housing censuses provide vital information for monitoring the Agenda for Sustainable Development and the African Union’s Agenda 2063, in addition to a wide range of statistical areas allowing disaggregation by small geographic areas and small population groups,” Oliver Chinganya, African Centre for Statistics (ACS) Director, told Xinhua on the sidelines of the meeting.
Chinganya, addressing the technology-themed continental meeting, also emphasizing the importance of technology-assisted census in Africa, saying that “censuses are a fundamental source for producing small area statistics.”
“Timely dissemination of good quality census data is crucial for national and international development goals,” the ACS Director said, as he described population and housing censuses as “one of the most complex and costly statistical operations due to the involvement of a vast number of field workers.”
He also urged African countries to exert “extensive preparation, delineating entire country enumeration areas and mapping all households, massive awareness campaign and post-enumeration activities” towards conducting “effective and quality” population and housing censuses.
“There is a critical need for a continuous effort of using alternative approaches and technologies to improve data quality, timeliness and dissemination of census results while considering increasing costs of carrying out the census,” Chinganya added.
The urgent call also came as several African countries embarked on preparations for the 2020 round of population and housing censuses.
Egypt, Lesotho and Malawi have already undertaken the census, while several others are currently at advanced stages in preparation, according to the UN Economic Commission for Africa (ECA).
The ECA also on stressed that the “use of technology, particularly the use of mobile tablets, has become part of the 2020 round with the expansion in mobile connectivity on the continent and mobile devices with GPS capability providing new opportunities.”
Amid continental wide efforts to embrace new technological advancements to improve the quality of census data collection and dissemination, the Ethiopian Central Statistics Agency (CSA) finalized preparations to embrace Chinese technologies during the upcoming Fourth National Population and Housing Census, which was recently postponed for next year.
Biratu Yigezu, Director General of CSA, had recently told Xinhua the agency had already purchased close to 180,000 tablets from Chinese technology giants, Huawei and Lenovo, to effectively conduct the population and housing census, which is held about every 10 year.
The products, which had been tested and approved by the agency, will be circulated across Ethiopia as the East African country embarked on its first-ever digital population and housing census procedure, which includes the use of mobile tablets for data collection through five major local Ethiopian languages, according to Yigezu.
Yigezu, who noted that the previous censuses that Ethiopia had conducted some 11 years ago was “challenging” as the total procedure was carried out in a paper-based manner, said that the new technology is “crucial to report and register the actual data straight to the system without any loss of facts in the process and it reduces time.”
Experts at the CSA had also previously told Xinhua that the use of mobile tablet technologies during the data collection procedure “will immensely reduce various difficulties that may affect the census process.”
The new technology is said to effectively establish careful data registration systems, which will eventually avoid duplication and double counting during the data collection and registration procedure, according to experts at the CSA.
The ECA, which supported Ethiopia to prepare 180,000 tablets through developing mobile apps and web-based applications, also on Wednesday revealed that it is currently supporting Kenya for its upcoming census while discussions are ongoing with Ghana on similar matters.
“The ECA is proposing an experts group meeting on using new technology to strengthen the capacity of national statistical offices and agencies in charge of population and housing census for improving data quality and timely dissemination of census results,” the ECA said in a statement issued during the ongoing continental meeting in Addis Ababa.