National census to start on August 28

By Innocent Anguyo & Tonny Rujuta

KAMPALA - Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS) has announced that it will conduct the national population and housing census from August 28 to September 6.

This period of time will not be a public holiday.

UBOS executive director Ben Paul Mungyereza made the announcement on Thursday, during a census sensitization meeting for Kampala local government leaders at Statistics House in Kampala.

“The census night will be August 27/28 and all the people that will have spent this night in Uganda will be enumerated,” he said.

Uganda’s population is currently estimated at 35 million people, having grown from about 24 million people in September 2002 when the last census was conducted.

According to the statistics, the country’s population has increased by about 10 million people in the last 12 years.

To ensure that students get enumerated, the ministry of education has scheduled the second term holiday in consonance with the census days.

The ten-day exercise will enable the collection of information useful for planning, allocating resources and monitoring development programmes, according to UBOS.

Uganda is ranked the 35th most populated country in the world, with China’s and India’s 1.3 billion and 1.2 billion, respectively, rising above all the other countries.

Tanzania (30th) is more populated than any other East African country with an estimated 45 million people. Kenya (31st) has about 44 million people, Rwanda (80th) with about 10 million and Burundi (92nd) with 9 million.

According to the deputy executive director of UBOS, Imelda Musaana, the methodology used during the census will be door-to-door enumeration at household level, with the help of face-to-face interviews using structured questionnaires.

The questionnaire content will include individual characteristics, migration characteristics, parental survival, disability status, education characteristics, economic activity, fertility and mortality, housing conditions, ICT and agricultural module.

UBOS has requested households to ask at least an articulate member of the family to remain behind at home, to answer the questionnaire during the census period since there won’t be public holiday.

Some of the census days will fall on the weekend.

Publication of provisional results for the enumeration will take place in October this year, although a detailed report will be issued later, within a year at most.

The enumeration has twice been marked by shifting of deadlines in the past. The exercise was to be held in 2012, but was postponed to 2013 due to lack of funds, then again to August this year.

In the financial year 2013/14, government allocated sh50.4 billion to support preparatory activities ahead of the exercise.