ZimStat to release census results
PRELIMINARY results of the 2022 population and housing census will be out on 1 August, the Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency (ZimStat) has said.
Previously, census results were released two years after enumerators had concluded the process but now it has been simplified and results will be released sooner. The rest of the results will however, be released in a series of eight reports until November.
The census took place from 21 to 30 April and this also saw an extended five day mop up exercise to ensure that those who were left out by the initial exercise were counted. The census took into account the number of people who were in the county on the night of 20 April 2022 which was regarded as the census night.
ZimStat Manager Public Relations and Communications, Ms Mercy Chidemo said the results will be released in a phased manner owing to the various components that were included in this edition of the census that were not included in previous ones.
“There will be a series of census reports starting with the release of preliminary results on 1 August 2022. This will cover the demographic module. The report will cover population size disaggregated by sex at national, provincial, district and ward levels. It will also include annual average population growth rate, average size of households and population density among other indicators,” she said.
The 2022 housing and population census was unique in that it brought together new data collection methods and other technological advanced ways to enumeration.
“Some of the unique aspects included the use of tablets in data collection through a method called Computer-Assisted Personal Interviewing. This enabled data to be synchronised to our servers on a daily basis enabling data processes to commence instantly. Previously, censuses were conducted using paper questionnaires. This has resulted in reduction of release time of results from 24 months to three months,” said Ms Chidemo.
She said ZimStat enumerators took Global Positioning Systems (GPS) coordinates of all dwelling units during the census mapping exercise. This resulted in complete coverage of dwelling units improving the quality of results. Furthermore, she said the 2022 census focused on housing characteristics in more detail than what was being interrogated in previous censuses. However, some challenges were recorded with bad weather and connectivity being some of the obstacles initially.
“Enumeration began when the country was still experiencing heavy downpours in some areas. This affected mobility in some areas and slowed down the progress. We have areas where there was no network such that our enumerators failed to sync data to the server on a daily basis. We had to send a team to collect data manually or transport enumerators to nearby areas where there was network,” said Ms Chidemo.
Despite these challenges, she said the census enumeration was a success and thanked the nation for cooperating with our enumerators during this period.
“ZimStat will be conducting the Post Enumeration Survey (PES) from 20 to 26 July 2022 to evaluate the coverage, completeness and quality of the 2022 Population and Housing Census. The PES will cover 130 Enumeration Areas (EAs) across the country. ZimStat is once again, appealing for co-operation from residents in the selected EAs to ensure that the PES is a success,” she added.
Government allocated US$98 million for the population and housing census. The census is important in that it gives baseline information that is vital for economic blueprints like the National Development Strategy 1 and other policy formulations. The census saw 40 500 enumerators being deployed in various provinces to conduct the survey which is done once in every 10 years. When the last census was conducted in 2012 the population of Zimbabwe was estimated to be around 13.12 million.
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