Statistical Service to Map Out Areas for 2010 Census (Page 47)

Story: Lucy Adoma Yeboah (Monday, February 11, 2008)
THE Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) will this month begin a training programme for some of its personnel to map out localities for the 2010 population census.
In an interview in Accra, the Government Statistician, Dr Grace Bediako, said the mapping exercise was for the personnel to demarcate each district into smaller enumeration areas of 150 households for easy and effective data collection during the census.
The Government Statistician said the GSS in collaboration with the Survey Department and the Ministry of Local Government, Rural Development and Environment were currently taking steps to identify boundaries and demarcate areas for the newly created districts as well as update those of the existing ones.
A census is the process of obtaining information about every member of a population. The term is mostly used in connection with national population and door-to-door censuses to be taken every 10 years according to United Nations (UN) recommendations.
Ghana conducted the last census in 2000 and recorded 18,912,079 people. There were 9,357, 382 males and 9,554, 697 females at the time. Currently, the Ghanaian population is estimated at about 22 million.
Dr Bediako said after the training programme, the personnel would be divided into 10 teams, with four members in each team, to cover the 10 regions, adding that two additional teams would be assigned to verify the work of the 10 teams.
She pointed out that as soon as the service received additional funding for the exercise, more teams would be added to the initial 10 teams.
She further said that the manual to be used for the census would be developed this year as part of the preparation for the exercise.
The Government Statistician stated that Ghana had reached a stage where it had become necessary to embark on digitised mapping process instead of continuing with the previous manual system and said the service would this time combine both the manual and the digitised system for easy compilation and dissemination of statistical information.
“The digitised mapping process is more expensive but it is quicker and makes dissemination of information much easier,” she observed.
She observed that the next census would be more challenging, since instead of the 110 districts which were covered in 2000, presently, there were 168 districts to be covered.
Late last year, President J.A. Kufuor, by an Executive Instrument (EI), created 28 new districts, increasing the total number of metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies from 138 to 166. Some towns were elevated to municipal status and some municipal areas to metropolitan areas.
The Government Statistician stated that the service had set up an advisory committee to help it to put in place effective machinery for a successful census, adding that the committee was made up of experts to advise the GSS as to what direction to go.
Apart from the actual counting of people, she said information such as sex, age, employment, housing, sanitation, access to water and fertility levels among other things which the advisory committee would advise, would be gathered.
She appealed to the country’s development partners and other organisations and institutions which had the interests of Ghana at heart to come to its aid to enable the country to have an effective census programme necessary for planning and development.
“This is the time to appeal for funds to enable the service to plan well for the exercise which is scheduled for 2010,” she stressed.
Dr Bediako said as usual, the census would take two weeks to complete with one census night to be used as the day of reference for the data collection on individuals.
She took the opportunity to appeal to Ghanaians to co-operate with the census officials when the time comes.