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Experiences and Lessons▶
1. Project Planning and Management2. Geospatial Mapping and EA Database3. Enumeration Instruments and Tools4. Data Capture and Management5. Census Testing and Pilots6. Recruitment and Training7. Deployment and Supervision8. Enumeration and Logistics9. Quality Assurance and Risk Management10. Census Analysis and Products11. Partnerships and Collaboration12. Advocacy and Publicity13. Procurement and Financial Management14. Post-Enumeration Survey15. Alternative Approaches16. Planning Checklist
Case Studies▶
1. Project Planning and Management2. Geospatial Mapping3. Enumeration Instruments4. Data Capture5. Census Testing6. Recruitment and Training7. Deployment and Supervision8. Enumeration and Logistics9. Quality Assurance10. Census Analysis11. Partnerships12. Advocacy13. Procurement14. Post-Enumeration Survey15. Alternative Approaches16. Planning Checklist
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Challenges and Lessons Learnt​

Although financial management guidelines are developed to ease the process of handling census funds, countries can experience challenges that disrupt work. Therefore, mechanisms should be put in place to ensure smooth operations. Kenya faced the following challenges:

  • Transfer/ unavailability of mandatory signatories to the census accounts hindered timely movement of funds to facilitate the census activities.

  • The Central Bank of Kenya set limitations on the amount of money to withdraw from the bank account, this made the payment processes long and tedious.

  • Unrealistic accounting procedures of funds were flaunted, especially since some activities were overlapping and the requirement was to account immediately after every activity.

  • When making various payments to the census personnel, there were numerous cases of bank rejections due to dormant or inactive bank accounts coupled with inaccurate bank details.

Although procurement guidelines are developed to ease the process of handling the acquisition of census materials, countries experience challenges that can disrupt work. As such, mechanisms should be put in place to ensure smooth operations. Procurement for goods, works and services for the 2019 Kenya PHC presented some challenges despite the timely planning by the procurement sub-committee, from which lessons are drawn:

  • Lack of an in-country market survey to identify large scale production companies to allow for proper planning about whether to procure locally or internationally. If not done, this will cause delay in supplying some items due to the large quantities required yet the contracted suppliers had to import the materials

  • Emerging new procurement requirements that were not initially captured in the census procurement plan and budget may arise. For instance, during uploading of maps on mobile devices, those for urban areas failed thus reverted to printing which had not been planned for. There being inadequate printing machines, outsourcing of printing services had to be done instead of printing in-house as planned.

Some of the challenges experienced including in Kenya and in some other African countries:

  • Census materials were procured on time, but some other materials were greatly delayed by the procurement process. This was because suppliers had to import almost everything and required several loads to be dispatched to the regions. 

  • Census materials were delivered in single small batches to the enumeration centres due to shortage of time at a very high cost.

  • The shortage of transport means for census materials due to gross under estimations in quantities and budget.

  • Some of the equipment, including enumerators manuals, was not printed in sufficient quantities and this led to late dispatch.

  • In some areas diaries were not procured on time leading the regional census committees to direct the RCC to buy the equipment to avoid procrastination problem.