Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS) executive director, Dr Chris Mukiza, has said that the census mapping exercise is currently at 65 percent as the Bureau prepares for the main census exercise at a date yet to be determined.
Dr Mukiza made the remarks while supervising the ongoing pre-Census activities in various Northern districts including Kiryandongo, Oyam, Gulu and Amuru.
While speaking to journalists at Oyam district headquarters on Friday, Dr Mukiza said only 31 districts and cities have not been covered so far.
He said the mapping exercise started in October 2022 and is expected to be completed at the end of October this year.
The mapping exercise not only involves getting geocoordinates of the households and the names of the heads of those households but also properly identifying the location of this household so each structure has a physical location digitally identifiable.
He said the mapping activity will help the bureau plan the number of enumerators to deploy and the number of tablets to equip them with before the main census.
After counting the household, it will turn green on the digital map.
“We don’t want to leave any household behind. Every village will be on the digital map. We should have finished mapping by the end of October this year. We will be validating and making maps by November and then start training enumerators by December,” he stated.
He said the bureau will buy tablets (which will come with power banks) for the enumerators and has contracted three telecoms (UTL, MTN and Airtel) to provide data (internet).
“Each numerical area will have a tablet. This mapping is digital. This exercise will lead to producing digital maps to be used for the census. Previous exercises were done by just covering demarcations of villages. Now, we are getting maps of households so that all are covered during the census,” he said.
After the census, the Bureau will leave three tablets at each parish to collect administrative data on health, education etc.
He said the geocoordinates will help UBOS understand all households covered and develop the physical addresses of the villages where they are located.
This, he said, will ease service delivery.
He cited the issue of underestimation of the sizes of villages which has since become a challenge facing many districts.
“This brings in the financial and logistical challenge. Our focal persons will compile these challenges and we will address them,” he noted while calling on governments to continue the mapping exercise.
He said the maps will indicate social amnesties and the Bureau will be able to know the distance from this social service to a given household in each village.
“Knowing the distance to social services will help the government to bring these services nearer to households, how to distribute schools for example and community policing. It is, therefore, important to know how to access and where service centres are.”
While interacting with Martin Jacan Gwokto, the Kiryandongo Chief Administrative Officer (CAO), Dr Mukiza promised a good partnership with districts for the success of the Census.
He said the CAO will be the chief of the district during the census.
“So, the mapping will help us determine the distance of water sources (clean water and sanitation), health centres etc. The questionnaire for community leaders will help us see how people access services for better planning and service delivery.”
While addressing district leaders in Gulu City, Dr Mukiza said the questionnaire will be in three categories; community, institutions and households and will pinpoint the characteristics of the subsistence economy.
“We will share the questionnaires with the districts for familiarisation. We will train the district trainers who, in turn, will train those at the sub-county level downwards.”
He warned the leaders that although the bureau is decentralizing the census, forging statistics is criminal.
“Let’s avoid inflating figures. We need clean statistics like we need clean water. Statistics that is not clean is useless and will always misinform planning.”
According to Dr Mukiza, the exercise is important in providing information for planning and service delivery for every member of each household and Parish Development Model (PDM) activities.
He said the census exercise will be conducted during the holiday to cater for school-going children.
When asked about the date of the actual census, Dr Mukiza said he wrote to the Cabinet to reschedule the census and is waiting for feedback.
He said provisional results will be released two months after the census enumeration.
“One month after the exercise, we do post-enumeration analysis which is done by an independent team. This time, we will release the census results twice.”