UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund Representative to Lesotho Mrs Therese Zeba Kobeane has applauded the Government of Lesotho and the Bureau of Statistics for conducting a successful census.
Speaking during an interview, the Representative said the government timely allocated a budget for the census, enabling the Bureau of Statistics to conduct the census process on time. She noted that authorities –from the national to the local level were all involved and supporting the process. “We are confident therefore that we will have credible results which will be useful to the country’s planning/design of sectoral policies, strategies, and monitoring of evaluation,” she added,
The Representative explained that UNFPA has always been the lead United Nations agency with the mandate to support data gathering at country level. She added that Lesotho is the first country within the 2020 round of censuses to conduct a digital population and housing census using hand held mobile devices (Android Tablets) for full implementation of the census.
“The census came at the right time following approval of the Sustainable Development Goals and also when the country is preparing to review its National Strategic Development Plan and sectoral strategies, as it will provide an accurate and updated baseline,” she further stated.
In addition, she specified that the Bureau of Statistics will share its experiences with other countries so that they can build upon such experiences when they will be conducting their censuses. It is in this vein that UNFPA supported Young Statisticians (10) from some countries in Africa to participate and observe Lesotho’s census process so that they could take home this experience as their countries would soon undertake censuses.
Data collection for the census began on the 10th April and officially ended on the 24th April 2016. However, the week ending on the 30th April 2016 has been set for call backs. The next activity that will soon be undertaken is the Post Enumeration Survey which is expected to take two weeks.
UNFPA support to this important national population and Housing census provided to the Bureau of Statistics consists of, among others, technical support from the country office to the regional office, support to south-south cooperation (study tours in specific countries) and mobile devices such as the android tablets.
