Demographic and Social Statistics

The United Nations Statistics Division is planning two back-to-back workshops on the Implementation of the United Nations Principles and Recommendations for Population and Housing Censuses, Revision 2 for English speaking African countries in Maputo, Mozambique, 30 October - 2 November 2006 and for French speaking African countries in Bamako, Mali, 6-9 November 2006. These workshops are designed to reach three major goals: (a) introduce the revised set of principles and recommendations, including the recommended tabulations as a new international standard; (b) provide an opportunity for participants to discuss these standards and to assess their feasibility and implementation in national census practices, and (c) through national reports prepared for these workshops, produce a list of the most pressing issues that national authorities are facing in preparing and conducting population and housing censuses. This list, in turn, will allow UNSD the planning of future inter-regional, regional and sub-regional activities as part of the implementation of the 2010 World Programme on Population and Housing Censuses.

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The United Nations Statistics Division is planning two back-to-back workshops on the Implementation of the United Nations Principles and Recommendations for Population and Housing Censuses, Revision 2 for English speaking African countries in Maputo, Mozambique, 30 October - 2 November 2006 and for French speaking African countries in Bamako, Mali, 6-9 November 2006. These workshops are designed to reach three major goals: (a) introduce the revised set of principles and recommendations, including the recommended tabulations as a new international standard; (b) provide an opportunity for participants to discuss these standards and to assess their feasibility and implementation in national census practices, and (c) through national reports prepared for these workshops, produce a list of the most pressing issues that national authorities are facing in preparing and conducting population and housing censuses. This list, in turn, will allow UNSD the planning of future inter-regional, regional and sub-regional activities as part of the implementation of the 2010 World Programme on Population and Housing Censuses.

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The purpose of the meeting is to introduce the revised United Nations Principles and Recommendations for Population and Housing Censuses, specifically to (1) present in details the new and revised international standards related to conducting a population and housing census; (2) critically review the process of selection of census topics and relevant questions for participating countries planning their censuses and for producing internationally required outputs, and (3) to discuss national preparations to conduct a census as per United Nations recommendations. The meeting will also address ways of instituting and fostering regional cooperation in ASEAN countries in conducting population and housing censuses.

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In implementing the 2010 World Programme on Population and Housing Censuses, the United Nations Statistics Division is organizing the 2006 Expert Group Meeting on the 2010 World Programme on Population and Housing Censuses in New York, from 10-14 July 2006. This meeting will bring together over 45 experts from all regions with one goal: to review and adopt the revised set of international standards for population and housing censuses as presented in the draft Principles and Recommendations for Population and Housing Censuses, Revision 2.

This proposed revision on the major international standards and guidelines is a result of broad consultations and contributions from over 100 national experts through UNSD developed and maintained mechanisms and is also taking into consideration regional guidelines, where they were available. The proposed changes refer to introducing 40 recommended census tabulations that each country or area would be called to generate at least once in the period 2005-2014 at the smallest geographical level; new definition and concept of usual residence; several new core topics, such as those related to mortality and the availability of information and communication technology devices in the household; it also presents new approaches to census-taking and the importance of Geographical Information Systems for collecting and disseminating census results.

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At its 35th session, the Statistical Commission recommended that an international expert group be formed to focus on critical issues related to planning the next round of population and housing censuses. Recognizing that the United Nations Statistics Division decennial census programme cannot cover all emerging topics, the Commission has asked the expert group to set priorities at its first meeting.

The purpose of the expert group meeting, therefore, is to set priorities and propose concrete outputs for the development of the 2010 World Population and Housing census Programme. Specifically the meeting will have before it relevant sections of the report of the 35th session of the Statistical Commission (see E/2004/24, chap. II. B, para. 2) as well as the draft resolution on the 2010 census round that will be submitted by the Census Symposium to the Statistical Commission at its 36th session. As the first in a series of meetings, the expert group will also establish terms of reference outlining its mandate in relation to the above mentioned Programme.

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The purpose of this Symposium is to set priorities for the upcoming decade round of population and housing censuses in light of the experience from the previous census decade. Specifically the Symposium will provide inputs for the drafting of a resolution requested by the Statistical Commission at its 35th session, calling on the Secretary-General to proceed with the development of a 2010 World Population and Housing Census Programme.

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