DOHA: The Ministry of Development Planning and Statistics has allocated April 20 and 21 to conduct the simplified mid-term census of population, housing and establishments.
Minister of Development Planning and Statistics H E Saleh Mohamed Salem Al Nabit made the announcement yesterday, while opening a workshop on preparations for the census by the ministry’s staff and those of other ministries, government departments and the private sector participating in the census.
“The ministry has chosen April 20 and 21 to be the two days for the mid-term census coming in the middle of 2010 to 2020,” he said. “The purpose of the census is to make comparisons with the census of 2010 and measure development changes in the past five years.”
He said the next major census will be conducted in 2020.
He said censuses were conducted in all developed countries to help update some statistical variables in the field of national planning that would be provided to governmental and research institutions and UN agencies.
The objective of the census is also to measure changes in the country’s demographics, identify the most populated areas depending on economic, social and environmental variables and survey land use to identify architectural changes in buildings, homes and businesses, said Nasser Saleh Al Mahdi, Director of Censuses, Household Surveys and Statistical Methods Department.
“There are always population estimates and sometimes they are all about increased population, there could be some differences however with the level of increases and the April census will help the ministry compare the projections with the field data collected,” he said.
He said a reliable census is important for a country to adequately plan growth, deliver services and solve the country’s problems. He also said that the application of statistics in monitoring service delivery and planning had contributed to and sustained economic growth in the country. The workshop focused on equipping the participants on the field data collection, tabulating and analysing the collected data as well understanding the different data requirements of government departments, research institutes and international agencies.
Dr Ismail Labad, from the Economic and Social Commission of Western Asia, said that among the recommendations for censuses of Population and Housing adopted recently by the UN was to take national censuses at least once in every 10 years.
Dr Ahmed Hussein, Statistical Expert at the Ministry of Development Planning and Statistics said that this year’s census authorities will be combining the recent technological methods of data collection like the Geographic Information Systems.
The Peninsula
