Census to make full use of technology

Technology will be a main feature in the data collection as the countries across the Caribbean undertake their population and housing census over the coming months.

So says Dr. Keith Mitchell, Prime Minister of Grenada, CARICOM Statistics Champion and Prime Minister with lead responsibility for Science and Technology in the quasi Cabinet of the CARICOM Heads of Government. He spoke to this earlier this week during the virtual launch of the CARICOM 2020 Round of Population and Housing Census, under the theme ‘Leave no one behind... Everyone counts’.

“One positive impact of the pandemic is that it has forced us to make better use of the available technology. I’m pleased to note that this census round, countries will include innovative approaches such as computer-assisted, personnel interviewing, using devices such as tablets and laptops to locate the dwellings of people to be interviewed and to capture the data for all individuals. Given the pandemic, countries are also likely to use the telephone system and internet to capture census data. As the Prime Minister responsible for science and technology in the CARICOM quasi cabinet, I welcome these innovative uses of ICT in the census,” he added.

Prime Minister Mitchell’s comments came as he said that yesterday’s CARICOM census launch, is part of the “tried and tested regionally coordinated approach to census taking”. He explained that that includes the national statistical offices in Member States and Associate Members collaborating under the Regional Census Coordinating Committee to assist in undertaking the massive exercise.

“This approach is also consistent with the principles underlined in the CARICOM Regional Strategy for Development of Statistics – RSDS that I championed in 2018. Led by the CARICOM Secretariat, the regionally coordinated approach optimises the benefits of working together on the census by insuring significant cost savings through the pooling and sharing of facilities, expertise and other resources across the region; examining common challenges and devising strategic solutions to these challenges; avoiding duplication of efforts in light of scarce resources; promoting technical cooperation; transferring technology from those countries more endowed with census knowledge to those less endowed; and developing competent and skilled census personnel to conduct the census activity,” he said.

He went on to explain that the development and use of common and harmonised methodol-ogies, instruments, procedures and practices under that approach, results in high quality regionally compatible census data. Such data, he said, can be used to inform national and regional census analysis and provide evidence to support our public and private sector decision making policies and programmes.

“I urge our international development partners to support the regional coordinated approach since it can result in a multiplier effect of the scarce resources that are available to fund a massive census undertaken in CARICOM states,” Mitchell indicated. (JRT)