2020 Census Preparedness

UN Statistical Commission submitted the 2020 World Population and Housing Censuses Programme in March 2015 to Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) for adoption. The programme was adopted by ECOSOC on 5 August 2015 and five major points were endorsed for the 2020 World Programme namely: i) authorizing the 2020 round; ii) urging countries to conduct at least one population and housing census within the Programme; iii) underscored maintaining internationally recommended quality standards and compliance with fundamental principles of official statistics; iv) emphasized the importance of the programme to SDG’s and v) requested the UN to develop standards, methods and guidelines and to monitor the implementation of the World Programme.

The underlying principles for the preliminary assessment on country preparedness for the 2020 Round of Population and Housing Census in Africa is to build institutional capacity for surveillance so as to highlight specific areas for ECA and other stakeholders’ interventions aimed at improving the capacities of countries in Africa to conduct the census within this round.