By Foday Moriba Conteh
On Tuesday 27th and Wednesday 28th October 2020, Stats –SL held a consultative meeting with the technical and publicity committees on the 2021 Mid Term Population and Housing Census (MTPHC).
During the meetings, they did a comprehensive explanation on the time line of events, mapping and Data collection methodology, questionnaire validation, composition of the publicity and communication committee, review and adoption of census messages, and presentation of the 2021 Midterm Population and Housing Census communication strategy.
Giving a synopsis on the 2021 MTPHC at the Technical committee meeting on Tuesday 27th October 2020, the Statistician General of Stats SL, Prof Osman Sankoh, started by welcoming representatives from different institutions and encouraged them to continue their support towards the whole process.
He mentioned that from the time of proclamation of the Census on July 21st 2020 by HE the President Brigadier Rtd. Dr. Julius Maada Bio, on to the press release published on the postponement of the census on 20th October 2020, the whole process was done through a consultative process, for which the Council Chairman, Deputy Statistician General of Stats SL and the Minister of Planning and Economic Development were all part and parcel of the process.
Perusing through the time line of activities and giving the importance of conducting the 2021 Mid Term Census on the 19th of April 2021, the Deputy Statistician General, Andrew Bob Johnny, said that this census is dubbed “The People’s Census” and its importance is to help fix major challenges faced with the 2015 population and housing census and also update base maps and delineate EA’s, which is a key justification of conducting the Mid Term Census.
He furthered that it is important to show where development is lacking in order to help government and donor partners plan very well, thus it is a big project for which they were having sleepless nights. He further made a presentation on the time line, where he started by saying that the finalization of census projection document began in September together with the finalization of census tools including the cartographic manual and questionnaire and also recruitment of cartographic field staff.
He also stated that training of trainers and cartographic field staff training had started in October and will continue till November; pilot cartography and cartographic field data collection begins in November; delineating and finalizing EA maps will begin in December on to March 2021; electronic questionnaire design and uploading into tablets begins December to March 2021; pilot census will begin in February; recruitment and training of enumerators begins January to March; deployment and field data collection starts April; post enumeration survey begins May; data analysis and report writing starts June and ends July 2021; preliminary report is expected in August and printing and dissemination of final report will be in September 2021. With this timeline, he concluded that the task ahead was huge and expectations are high, he encouraged everyone to put in their tireless efforts in ensuring a successful outcome of the project.
Giving his key note address in the communication and publicity committee meeting on the 28th October 2020, the Council chairman of Stats SL, Moses Williams, started by welcoming everyone present at the meeting and emphasized that Stats SL is not discrediting the 2015 Housing and population census. He went on to say that he had worked for the institution for a very long time before his appointment as Council Chairman, so he is not there as a politically motivated person but rather in the interest of the country. He further explained the reasons for conducting the 2021 MTPHC by indicating the percentage of data that cannot be accounted for which consist of 59% especially for the locality type 3, which is made up of several villages put together to form one EA, which he said, is the foremost reason for conducting the Mid-Term Population and Housing Census.
The meeting concluded with discussions around the communications Strategy which was presented by the Communications Director of Stats SL, Samuel Ansumana.
Recommendations and key points from both the Technical and Publicity Committee meetings will be presented for endorsement to the Advisory committee which met on Tuesday 3rd November 2020.
