Recommendations
- Ideally, planning for a digital PHC should start immediately after completion of the previous census. This should start with the evaluation and development of an administrative report that puts together the lessons learnt from one census and recommendations for improvement. The use of knowledge management tools and techniques is thus beneficial for preserving institutional memory so that lessons learned are used for better management of future census planning and execution. Additionally, benchmarking lessons from countries that have already undertaken their digital census is a critical input to the development of a census proposal.
- The COVID-19 experience underscored the need for more resilient and adaptable census planning, with a strong emphasis on contingency planning and sustainable national funding mechanisms to ensure that every person is counted.
- A digital census increases the complexity and cost of planning activities; therefore, it is important to fully commit to planning the end-to-end design and to transparently prioritise activities to maintain the trust of stakeholders and obtain the political will to implement.
- A census plan should not be static but rather dynamic to accommodate changes that may occur at any of the phases.
- The census plan and budget should be presented to governments well in advance to secure necessary funding from national budgets or international sources.
- Ensure that the training needs are identified early in the census planning process and those that require funds are included in the census budget. Thus, understanding capacity gaps early is critical to developing the plan and delivering a successful census.
- For each census phase, there should be a detailed strategic plan. These strategic documents must be accompanied by a detailed prescriptive implementation plan highlighting linkages with the other phases.
- Countries should strongly uphold what their Statistics Act, national legislation and what the constitution stipulates about the timing of census implementation.
- Lobby and advocate to include in the legal framework that there should be no changing of administrative boundaries at least one year before the population and housing census undertaking.
- Countries should consider, in all the census planning phases, special issues like HIV, Gender, including interest groups such as persons with disability, refugees, internally displaced persons, nomadic populations and all other crosscutting issues. These affect budgets, logistics, recruitment, tools development etc.
- Prior to the development of a census plan, there should be an in-country situational assessment in terms of capacity gaps, technical issues, human and financial resources, IT infrastructure, and internet coverage to feed into the project document.
- Benchmark the draft census plan against related countries based on their documentation of lessons learnt and intercountry consultations. For instance, Uganda consulted Ghana and Tanzania during development of their census strategic plans.
- In post conflict, humanitarian and emergency settings, the census plan and project document should take into consideration as much of the key census considerations as is safe. The census plan should focus on using alternative innovative approaches to enumeration that save on costs and time. See also Alternative Approaches to enumeration.
- The development process of budgets and work plans for a digital census should be consultative both within and outside the census implementing agency, and it should be drawn for each of the census phases. Engage key stakeholders and census experts to review the budget for support and completeness.
- The detailed budget should include a write-up on explanations for some of the costs, it should also include a fundraising strategy and a contingency plan when budgeting (plan “B” alternative) when funds are completely unavailable. For instance, Sierra Leone faced budgetary challenges after the World Bank withdrew from the census process.
- Governments should be able to mobilise and avail adequate resources for the census undertaking and ensure timely disbursement of funds to avoid delays in implementation of activities.
- Countries should avoid overreliance on donor funding for census activities and aim to intensify cost-effective approaches.
- Review other countries’ budgeting experiences, particularly around costs associated with procuring and implementing technologies. This should also include related costs such as training, licensing, and consultancy costs to supply necessary digital expertise.
- Countries should ensure Information Technology (IT) experts are part of the planning committees, specifically to address issues on integration of the data protection law, data security, and technological risks among others.
- Furthermore, countries should ensure that committees have the appropriate range of skills and experience to support the delivery of a digital census, for example experience in delivering digital services.
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