ADVOCACY FOR RESOURCE MOBILIZATION IN THE 2010 ROUND OF CENSUSES

1. ADVOCACY FOR RESOURCE MOBILIZATION IN THE 2010 ROUND OF CENSUSES By Samson LAMLENN Technical Adviser, UNFPA/HRB New York

2. RECENT EXPERIENCES IN CENSUS TAKING IN AFRICA • Countries which have been respecting the 10-yearly interval for their 3 last censuses: • South Africa - Gambia • Lesotho - Namibia • Botswana - Kenya • Mauritius - Malawi • Burkina-Faso - Sao Tome • Cape Verde - Zimbabwe* • Swaziland - Zambia*

3. RECENT EXPERIENCES IN CENSUS TAKING IN AFRICA • Countries with no census over a 15-year period: • Chad (1993)* • Equatorial Guinea (1994) • Guinea Bissau (1991)* • Madagascar (1993)* • Countries with no detailed census results over a 15-year period: • Burundi (1990)* (2008) - Ethiopia(1994)*(2007) • Nigeria (1991)* (2006) • Sudan (1993)* (2008)

4. RECENT EXPERIENCES IN CENSUS TAKING IN AFRICA • Countries with no census over a 20-year period: • Angola (1970) - Eritrea (1984) • Togo (1981) - DRC (1984) • Djibouti (1983) - Somalia (1987) • Countries with no detailed census results over a 20-year period: • Cameroon (1987) (2005)* • Congo –Brazza (1984) (2007)* • Liberia (1984) (2008)**

5. MAIN REASONS FOR DELAYS IN CENSUS TAKING • Internal crises – civil wars, political instability, etc • Poor prioritization • Conflicting development agenda • Poor planning • Poor conceptualization • Non-respect of calendar of implementation • Inadequate human and financial resources • Brain drain and high staff turnover • Scarcity of external resources • Inadequacy and uncertainly of internal funding • Poor accountability – unclear procedures, poor follow-up, embezzlement • Diminished confidence over the reliability and usefulness of census data – inadequate political will • Improper political involvement – rejection of results

6. WHY MOBILIZE RESOURCES? • Population and housing censuses generally require more substantial resources because: • They are designed to cover the entire country and resident population • They entail use of a large amount of human and material resources • They are multi-year projects (3-5 years) • Population censuses must compete for scarce resources with many other data collection operations and development priorities • To ensure the smooth implementation of all phases of a census, it is preferable that most/all of the required funds be mobilized/committed from the outset.

7. STRATEGIES FOR RESOURCE MOBILIZATION • Prepare a detailed census project document • Design a user-friendly resource mobilization document from the project document • Identify key donor agencies and submit resource mobilization document with appeals for funds • Convene a donors’ conference with view to obtaining firm commitments • Identify funding gaps and pursue resource mobilization at various levels within and outside the country

8. BROAD COMPONENTS OF A RESOURCE MOBILIZATION DOCUMENT • Justification – Added value of the census • Objectives of the census project • Main strategies to be adopted for: • overall project implementation (phases, capacity strengthening, benchmarks, partnerships, innovative techniques to be employed; etc) • quality control, monitoring & evaluation, accountability • Key variables to be collected and expected outputs • Work plan by phase • Budget by phase (with evidence of government funding)

9. Discussions