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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​

  • All Africa countries that undertook a digital census in the 2020 round of PHC conducted a pilot census including multiple testing exercises. It is noted that the pilot helped countries to revise their initial census plans especially, with regards to recruitment criteria, training agenda, publicity and advocacy strategy, selection of trainers, adjustment of the questionnaires and data collection application among others.

  • Although it is recommended that pilot censuses should be conducted exactly a year to the actual census, some countries were not able to meet these timelines due to COVID-19, delay in approval of budgets, inadequate funding, among other reasons.

  • Some countries had not factored in budgets for carrying out further tests after issues were identified and remedied in the first tests. This led to constraints of resources and scaling down of the tests. It is advisable that during planning, tests need to be allocated adequate resources as they are key in the implementation of a digital census.

  • Carrying out the pilot census before the questionnaire, CAPI application, and other systems and processes have been finalised means that the pilot is inadequate. Pre-testing of the questionnaire and all applications and systems prior to the pilot should be carried out so that the pilot is a test of the proposed final methodology.

  • Carrying out the pilot using a small sample of households rather than by entire EAs meant that in some countries systems were not properly stress tested. For example, processes for transmitting or uploading data may work for a few households at a time, but can data from the entire EA be transmitted either from enumerator to supervisor or from supervisor to headquarters without issues?

  • All the tools and instruments to be tested need to be ready in time for the pilot (and should already have been tested as part of pre-tests). However, in many countries this was not the case, for example the census server may not be ready until just a few weeks before the census. There needs to be recognition that digital testing, including volumetrics and stress-testing is a complex subject, and will require an expert. Security testing is also important and requires an expert. Such experts need to be brought in to properly scope out what and how digital systems should be tested.