Population census preps on course

The mapping process involves listing of 100 households constituting a unit called an Enumeration Area.
In an interview yesterday, Zimstat population census manager Mr Washington Mapeta said the mapping exercise, initially envisaged to end in June, had been completed in the country’s 10 provinces.

“Now that we are done, we are just mopping up and revisiting areas where we think we need to be redone to make it easier for the actual counting,” said Mr Mapeta.
He said there was a need to make the maps user friendly to ensure that the counting exercise flows smoothly.
“There are some areas that we are likely to visit because we feel the population there is mobile and there were other changes,” said Mr Mapeta.

“The mapping exercise also determines the location of the population in advance of the enumeration in order to make possible the recruitment, training and allocation of an adequate number of enumerators to guarantee that the exercise is done without omissions or replications.” 
He said funding from the Government and other developmental partners was satisfactory.

“We hope that other developmental partners will chip in with funding, but at the moment what we are getting is reasonable,” said Mr Mapeta.
He said they were well within their deadline of conducting the census.   
The 2012 population census is going to be conducted from 18 to 28 August and it is an important event for the country to obtain data on the size, age and geographical distribution of the population in order to inform policy at all levels.

Since the last population census in 2002 there have been significant demographic changes such as people who have gone to the Diaspora.
The pilot census instruments and operations were concluded in August 2011 and preliminary results are being disseminated to relevant stakeholders.
The census will cost about $39 million.

Treasury had so far released $4 million for the field mapping.
Mr Mapeta said they would not count people in the Diaspora as that would include visiting every place where Zimbabweans reside.
This is the fourth population census that Zimbabwe has undertaken since the country’s independence in 1980.

The first one was held in 1982, and two others were subsequently held at 10-year intervals.
The last census in 2002 put Zimbabwe’s population at 14 million.

A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring and recording information about the members of a given population. It is a regularly occurring and official count of a particular population.