Kakata, Margibi County – Andrew Tellewoyen, the Census Coordinator at the Liberia Institute of Statistic Geo-Information Services (LISGIS) says despite the delay in the conduct of the National Population and Housing Census, his team is fully prepared with new ideas to have the 2021 census conducted in a more advanced way.
Tellewoyen made the remark Wednesday at the Kakata City Hall during the opening of the 16-day Refresher Training Workshop for Field Mapping Assistants and Cartographers of the National geographic Planning for the 2021 National Population and Housing Census.
“We will like to say to all of our people, we are prepared than ever before to have this census conducted. I can promise you that this census is going to be Liberia’s best census ever,” LISGIS Census Coordinator said.
“We are conducting GIS (geographic information system) training. For the first time in our country, every structure in Liberia will be captured. For the first time in our country, we will do an analysis here linking it with those areas that we will be visiting. The census is going to provide a lot more that we will use for the SDG monitoring, for the AU 2063 monitoring as well as our own Pro-Poor Agenda for Prosperity and Development,” Tellewoyen said.
Liberia’s next round of the National Population and Housing Census is now all set for March 2021. This census, which is expected to be the fifth in Liberia’s 173-year history, is likely to reveal the country’s constantly growing population.
The first four modern censuses in 1962, 1974, 1984, and 2008 revealed how the population had increased differently beginning at 1.1 million, 1.5, 2.1, and 3.5 million respectively.
Every 10 years, Liberia conducts a population and housing census with the last census being conducted in 2008. According to the LISGIS Census Coordinator, because of political transitional in 2018, the census was proposed in 2018.
“If it did not work in 2018 that does not mean we could not do it anymore. So, as for the international stipulation for the conduct of censuses, we are still in the United Nation 2020 round of censuses,” Tellewoyen said.
He added that they started the process of conducting training for Mapping Assistant and Cartographers last year but was put on a standstill due to the CONVD-19 outbreak.
Tellewoyen also called on the participants of the refresher training workshop to pay attention to the materials that are going to be taught for the next 16-day.
“People are watching us. This is what we are going to publish. What you are going to do in this City Hall in Kakata is going to be a major boost for this country in the future,” he says.
Also speaking, Mr. Ibrahim Mohammed Sesay, the Census Technical Advisor of UNFPA said this year’s census will be conducted according to “internationally acceptable standard”.
According to him, the census is clearly a starting point of setting up a national data environment. A data environment that he says will be put into one center for the betterment of the country.
“Liberia has decided to revolutionize the way of during business. Therefore, the government through LISGIS has migrated Liberia from using papers and pens to collect data to using computers or electronic to collect data,” Sasey said.
According to the UNFPA Census Technical Advisor Liberia is the first country that does not its own Saturn light but has all its Saturn light images that give it information for the land area as a whole.
Sasey added: “Those countries that have a Saturn light has never ever employed such an important technology to do a census from start to finish.”
He added: “Beginning tomorrow, Liberia will be perfectly connected into the Saturn light space and LISGIS shall have the key to access it. We must continue to be the beginner. That is the first country to do this census in Africa.”