The Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) has engaged with its development partners to discuss the status of the 2021 Population and Housing Census (PHC) implementation with the aim to mobilise additional resources for the census.
The meeting, organised by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the lead global partner in census implementation, in collaboration with the UN Resident Coordinator’s office and the GSS provided a forum for the development partners to discuss strategic engagement towards the 2021 PHC to be conducted in April and May 2021.
High quality census
In his opening remarks, the United Nations (UN) Resident Coordinator for Ghana, Mr. Charles Abani stated that the UNFPA was mandated to ensure that the 2021 PHC was of high quality and uphold international principles and standards.
Mr. Abani said the UN was supporting with technical assistance, capacity strengthening, procurement of equipment, funds, coordination, management of financial resources and facilitation of South-South cooperation.
Census data, he noted, was critical to national and sub-national development planning, tracking progress for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the distribution of infrastructure and social welfare programmes, election planning and market analysis.
Evidence based data
The Country Representative of UNFPA, Mr. Niyi Ojuolape expressed the agency’s preparedness to support Ghana to generate evidence-based data to meets its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
He stated that the UNFPA considers the census as a priority development activity that required the strategic partnership to ensure its success and called on all government and development partners to “come on board and support the 2021 census to be a success.”
According to him, aside assisting with financial resources and equipment, the UNFPA had also employed a Chief Technical Advisor, who is supporting the GSS with the technical expertise required to conduct a successful census.
Census preparations
Giving an overview of the census implementation, the Government Statistician, Prof Samuel Kobina Annim said preparations for the census were at an advanced stage.
Several preparatory activities are ongoing, including the production of enumeration and supervision area maps, review of training materials, and finalisation of various operational strategies and protocols stated.
Prof Annim, however indicated that the key milestones that had been achieved ahead of COVID-19 had all been negatively impacted by the global pandemic.
“Before March 2020, we had completed fieldwork for census mapping, conducted two trial censuses, finalized all the questionnaires, developed and reviewed all training materials, trained 58 Mater Trainers and obtained the President’s commitment on the schedule for the census data collection. Now we will have to conduct another trial census because the date has changed,” Prof Annim stated.
Representatives of the development partners at the meeting
He explained that the impact of CPVID-19 had added a cost of GHC 7 billion, which is needed to take care of Personal Protective Equipment (PPEs) and other logistics.
Resource gaps
Elaborating on the resource gaps, the Chief Technical Advisor, Mr. Collins Opiyo said further support and partner engagement was needed in 10 strategic areas for a successful census.
His areas, he said, were field operations, personnel welfare and safety, data quality assurance and management, data processing, data analysis, printing, publication, results in dissemination and technical assistance.
Mr. Opiyo emphasised that censuses were a complex operation that governments are usually not able to fund alone and therefore required support from bilateral, multilateral and individual donors.
Fact sheet
*The 2021 Population and Housing Census (PHC) is the first digital census to be conducted in Ghana.
* The census was first slated to be implemented in March 2020 but the date was changed to April and May 2012 due to the COVID-19 pandemic
By Rosemary Ardayfio