The African Addendum to the UN Principles and Recommendations for Population and Housing Censuses

1. The African Addendum to the UN Principles and Recommendations for Population and Housing Censuses Workshop on Census Management and Cartography 8 – 12 October 2007, Lusaka, Zambia Dimitri Sanga, Senior Statistician

2. Outline • Background • Why an African Supplement to the UN Principles and Recommendations (P&R) for Population and Housing Censuses (PHC)? • Preparing the African Addendum to the P&R for PHC • Some of the Recommendations • The Way Forward

3. Background

4. The 2010 World Programme on PHC • Approval of the the 2010 World Programme on PHC by the 2005 UN StatCom • Establishment of the Expert Group (EG) on the 2010 RPHC with the following mandate: • To help countries to conduct at least one population and housing census during the period 2005-2014 • To produce an updated version of the United Nations Principles and Recommendations for Population and Housing Censuses (P&R) • To provide a platform for a comprehensive exchange of experiences, countries’ participation, technical assistance, information and data dissemination

5. The Africa Symposia on Statistical Development (ASSD) • A country-led initiative consisting of a series of symposia organized in close collaboration with the UNECA and the UNSD • Main objectives: • Deliberate on issues of statistical development • Identifying and addressing challenges that are posed to NSOs in Africa • The ASSD: • First: Cape Town, January-February 2006 • Second: Kigali, January 2007 • Third: Accra, 3-7 December 2007 (originally in January 2008)

6. The ASSD (Cont’d) • The first ASSD focussed among others on: • Encouraging all African countries to undertake a population and housing census in the 2010 RPHC • Reaching consensus on recommendations on the revision of the UN Principles and Recommendations on PHC from an African Perspective • Provide a platform for comprehensive exchange of experiences on countries’ participation, technical assistance, information, and data dissemination

7. The ASSD (Cont’d) • Major outcomes of the meeting: • Detailed recommendations on the revision of the P&R on PHC • African countries to meet on an annual basis: • To engage actively in the ongoing dialogue on the P&R for PHC • To exchange best practice in the planning and management, execution, processing, analysis and dissemination of census data • The focus of the Second ASSD was on: • Information sharing on census taking process, census methodology, analysis, and dissemination • The imperative to build and develop the capacity of NSOs to manage census taking • Revisiting the P&R on PHC taking in the African context

8. Why an African Addendum to the UN P&R on PHC?

9. Why an African Addendum to the UN P&R on PHC? • During the first ASSD: • African countries discussed their contribution to the to the P&R • Their recommendations: presented to the UN forwarded to the EG on the 2010 World Programme on PHC for appropriate consideration • The revision of the P&R has been completed • UNSD organized workshops on the implementation of these P&R in census undertaking during the 2010 round • Two workshops in Africa (Maputo and Bamako, November 2006)

10. Why an African Addendum to the UN P&R on PHC? (Cont’d) • Concerns by African countries: some of the African recommendations were not taken into account at the global level: • Some issues and topics: non core at the global level but core for the region • Some of the definitions and concepts needed to be revisited (regional comparability) • African countries recommended: • A revisit of the P&R and the African recommendations from the Cape Town meeting • The production of an African version of the P&R (or an addendum to the P&R).

11. Preparing the African Addendum to the P&R for PHC

12. Preparing the African Addendum to the P&R for PHC • An important part of the second ASSD dealt with the preparation of the Addendum • The work consisted of: • Break-away groups that focused on: • Core topics • Problematic concepts and definitions • Analysis and dissemination • Plenary session to share the work from the sessions and seek inputs from other participants

13. Preparing the African Addendum to the P&R for PHC (Cont’d) • Group on Core Topics: • To revisit the core questions that were recommended in Cape Town, Maputo and Bamako • To critically look at non-core questions and recommend to make them core if they are appropriate in the African context • Group on concepts and definitions • To revisit some of the problematic definitions and recommend African common definitions if possible • Group on Analysis and Dissemination: • To propose strategies for the analysis and dissemination of Census Data in Africa • Detailed recommendations from the groups appear in appendices 1, 2, and 3 of the second ASSD Report

14. Some of the Recommendations

15. Recommended Topics • African countries considered the topics on the basis of: • The relevance of the topic for African Countries • The additional benefit that they will bring to the census (value added) • The ambiguity of the definition • The difficulty in obtaining accurate response • The overloading of the questionnaire • Cost considerations

16. Recommended Topics (Cont’d) • Core topics at the global level that are not core at the African level: none • Topics considered core at the African level but not core at the global level • Child labour • High level of poverty in Africa and orphanhood have contributed to the problem of child labour • Paternal, maternal and dual orphanhood • Information to be used in estimating adult mortality indicators • High prevalence of HIV/AIDS in Africa and War have worsened the incidence of orphanhood • Household Assets • Information is crucial in estimating non-monetary poverty in Africa or welfare indicators

17. Recommended Topics (Cont’d) • Age of mother at date of first child born alive • an indirect way of estimating or deriving child mortality which should be core to Africa due to its high prevalence • Child mortality is also a core indicator of the MDGs • Construction material roof and floor • Helps in assessing quality of housing • Access to quality housing is a very important variable in measuring attainment of Africa’s development agenda (basic needs of human development) • Field of education and educational qualification • For human resource planning purposes • Births in the last 12 months • Critical topic to estimate current fertility

18. Some Concepts and Definitions • Household assets: • Some of the household asset items mentioned in the P and R may not be very basic or relevant to Africa: e.g. dish washing machines •  A basic standard list for Africa would include: radio, TV, canoe, land, computer, agricultural equipments… • Place of usual residence • To restrict usual residence to past 6 months instead of the 12 months given in the Global P&R • Need to differentiate past residence from intention to reside when collecting data and tabulating this variable

19. The Way Forward • African countries contributed successfully to the production of the African Supplement to the P&R on PHC by: • Taking stock of the African recommendations on the revision of the UN P&R on PHC • Taking stock of the revised UN P&R on PHC • The UNECA is finalizing the document by incorporating comments, suggestions… • The final document is to be presented during the third ASSD to be held in Accra (3-7 December 2007)

20. Thank you! African Centre for Statistics Visit us at http:www.uneca.org/statistics/ 20