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Locadia Mavhudzi, Midlands Correspondent
The Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency (ZimStat) has started training personnel towards the 2022 population census following the release of US$98million by treasury for the programme.
This will be the fifth population census since independence in 1980 with figures expected to be released within three months since the process will be computerized.
A national one-week training session is currently underway in Kwekwe with trainees drawn from across the country.
The training process will cascade to supervisors and enumerators totaling 40 000 in the pre- enumeration phase.
Zimbabwe has held population censuses starting 1982 and proceeding to hold more in 1992, 2002 and 2012.
The 2022 population census will provide up-to-date data for 24 Sustainable Development Goal (SDG), which will allow for continuous monitoring and reporting.
The census will also collect data for indicators from several other national and internationally agreed development frameworks such as the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) and the World Summit for Children.
Officially opening the training session, ZimStat Director Mr Taguma Mahonde said treasury has allocated agency US$98 million for the preparation and conduct of the 2022 population census.
“Treasury has allocated US$98 million for the 2022 population census programme. So far a third of that amount has gone towards procurement of vehicles, digital equipment, training costs and procurement of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) among other things,” he said.
Mr Mahonde said 72 teams have been dispatched across the country for the mapping exercise.
“A mapping exercise is ongoing across the country though it was also affected by Covid-19 induced challenges. We were supposed to complete the mapping exercise by July 2021. However, we have increased our mapping teams from 56 to 72 so that we meet the new target of completion which is now January 2022. The mapping process is almost complete with Bulawayo at 100 percent while 32 rural districts are also complete,” he said.
Mr Mahonde expressed gratitude on the support extended to the national census programme from Cabinet and development partners.
“Cabinet has set up a national census committee which is being chaired by the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development and will be decentralised through sub committees at provincial and district levels,” he said.
Mr Mahonde said a pilot population census will be held in November this year to test the level of preparedness.
He said the 2022 population census will be the first computerised system of conducting census in the country.
“It is going to be a digital census. All enumerators will be equipped with Tablets gargets and data collected will be sent to the main saver promptly. Traditionally census result would take 24 months to collate but under the new system, preliminary results will be availed within three months.
“The project has three phases namely pre-enumeration, enumeration and post-enumeration,” said Mr Mahonde.
Main results of the 2012 national population projections report indicate that the total population for the country is set to increase from 13,3 million to 21.3 million between 2012 and 2032.
Bongani Ndlovu
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