Uganda’s population has reached 45.9 million people, according to the Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS).
This was revealed Thursday, June 27, 2024, by UBOS Executive Director and Census Commissioner, Dr Chris Mukiza while disseminating the Preliminary Results of National Population and Housing Census 2024 at Serena Hotel in Kampala.
“We now have a population of 45,935,046 people up from 34.6 million counted in 2014,” said Dr Mukiza.
Of these, 22 million people are males while 23 million are females.
He said this represents an increase of 11.3 million in the last 10 years and includes 780,061 refugees.
According to Dr Mukiza, Uganda is a young country with; 50.5% being children (0-17 years), 22.7% Youth (18-30 years), 5.0% Older persons (60+) and 55.6% Working Age Population (14-64 years).
This was the 11th census in Uganda, the sixth post-independence census and the first digital census that happened from 10th May – 26th May 2024.
“We had 135,230 field workers, 14,669 enumeration supervisors and 4715 sub-county/ division supervisors with 5 sets of questionnaires,” noted Dr Mukiza.
He cited some challenges including hard-to-reach areas, failure to access some households, refusals by some religious cults and deliberate refusals of households in gates, and internal border conflicts like in Apaa, Ombechi, and Nyamisingiri, among others.
“There were unavailable respondents i.e. single-person households that leave early and come back late. Also, the geography of some areas was not updated on the system.”
UBOS is releasing these preliminary census results exactly 31 days after the closing of the census.
“What we promise as UBOS we deliver. The Census cost per capita was $1.9 compared to $2 in Kenya,” stated Dr Mukiza.