By John Njiraini
The 2009 Population and Housing Census set for August will expose the real scope of unemployment, population growth, poverty, falling education and health standards and life expectancy in Kenya.
The Kenyan National Bureau of Statistics has revised the questionnaire to be used in the census to update vital data in its files.
A census is carried out every 10 years, and the last one was carried out in 1999.
The questions have been structured to provide greater details on the scale of HIV infections, rural-urban migration, drug and substance abuse, prostitution, abortion and crime.
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"The information collected in the 2009 census will be useful for measuring the dynamics of the Kenyan population, providing baseline data for Vision 2030 and global initiatives such as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)," said Planning Permanent Secretary Edward Sambili.
The objective of the census, which will cost Sh7 billion, and will be conducted by 130,000 personnel, is to provide benchmark data at all administrative levels. Government plans to use the census for planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of various projects.
Unlike previous censuses that focused more on establishing the size of the population, the information in this year’s exercise will include levels of education, fertility and mortality, migration rates, and patterns of urbanisation.
Other details will be housing conditions and availability of household amenities, agricultural activities, information and communication technology and main forms of disabilities.
Inclusive
Refugees who continue to flock the country from hotspots like Somalia, Sudan and Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) will also be counted.
According to Sambili, the results of this year’s census will be a critical tool in allocation of resources by the Government.
It will be used in preparation of development plans, allocating funds from the Local Authority Transfer Fund (LATF), the Constituency Development Fund (CDF), registration of voters, issuing of national identity cards and demarcation of administrative and political boundaries.
The Government will be hoping to avoid a repeat of the 1999 census debacle, when the population was found to be 28.7 million, but the result was highly disputed, with the Government being accused of manipulating numbers in some areas.
It is not clear why the Government needs information on recent deaths in households, or how it plans to verify information on absentee family members.
It is also unclear how people displaced and separated by post-election violence last year will be tallied and classified.
