PRESS BRIEFING BY DESA ON CENSUS TAKING

The Director of the Statistics Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Hermann Habermann, told correspondents at a Headquarters press briefing today that the census was the most important data collection that any country undertook; the process, one way or another, sought to touch everybody in a country.

According to Mr. Habermann, the fact that censuses did not always count everybody was the reason for the gathering in New York this week of 55 census experts from around the world.  The meeting, known formally as the "Symposium on the Global Review of the 2000 Round of Population and Housing Censuses:  Mid-Decade Assessment and Future Prospects", is being held at Headquarters from 7 to 10 August.  Participants are seeking to identify problems that emerged during the current census round, which began in 1995 and is due to conclude in 2004, in order to formulate national strategies for effective population counts.

Mr. Habermann said that the people represented at the symposium were responsible for counting approximately three fourths of the world's population.  Their work formed the basis for all other data collections and provided the chance, every five or 10 years, for a country to step back and take a look at itself.

The following experts participated in today's briefing:  Pali Lehohla, Statistician-General, Statistics South Africa; J.K. Banthia, Registrar General and Census Commissioner, Office of the Registrar-General, India; Hasan Abu-Libdeh, President, Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics; and Alicia Bercovich, Coordinator of the Population Census 2000, Instituo Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatisticas, Brazil.  Information Officer Tim Wall, of the Development and Human Rights Section of the Department of Public Information (DPI), moderated the discussion.

Mr. Habermann noted that the United States census had provided information on such things as the changed composition of the population, the emergence of new commuting patterns, changes in income distribution, and racial characteristics.  Censuses provided unique fundamental information that no other data collection could do.  More than that, a census was a country-wide effort that sought to involve everyone.  Participants at the meeting were searching for practical strategies to improve their work, not only of counting the world's people, but of trying to understand their characteristics.

Mr. Hasan Abu-Libdeh said the 1997 census had marked the first-ever experience of conducting a population count in his country.  That had been an extremely important event in the lives of the Palestinian people because, for many years, only national estimates about the population count and its characteristics had been available; local authorities had therefore basically worked from that data alone.  The recent census undertaking had allowed local authorities to gain a wealth of information that would eventually allow them to better use their own resources and assume certain benefits from the central government. 

He said that the census had been conducted in very unique conditions, as his country was not "totally sovereign".  Part of it was occupied and part of it was under the self-rule of interim arrangements with Israel.  A very extensive set of activities had been undertaken to allow the population to freely participate in the counting, including a publicity campaign.  The census had been very well received by the government and local authorities.  On the basis of its findings, the government had decided to put all its agencies into a track of training and capacity building.  Many ministers were relying heavily on the census results, in terms of planning and rethinking strategies. 

While the census had been classical in terms of its conceptual framework, it had addressed some very serious challenges unique to Palestinian society, he said.  For example, an extensive effort was made to count that part of the population still under occupation.  The results had shown that there was a general myth about the size of the population, about literacy rates, and about various socio-economic characteristics which had been based on extensive projections and estimates.  The census had made possible the emergence of "a new nation -– one that had not known much about itself". 

Mr. Lehohla said South Africa had a long history of census taking, but it also had a long history of conflict, characterized, in part, by the "Balkanization" of the country in the 1970s.  There had been a nationwide census in 1970 and others in 1980, 1985, 1991.  But those had been done in a "Balkanized" country consisting of some 11 territories -- five homelands and six self-governing territories.  The 1996 census had been an exercise of nation building, by which South Africa had managed to count itself as one country, after 26 years. 

He recalled that census taking in the period between 1970 to 1996 had been marred by a lot of demographic estimates and intellectual conflict.  The debate about accuracy and the composition of the population intensified in 1996.  Indeed, that census had provided a mirror image of the country, following 26 years of unreliable data.  South Africa had a history of conducting censuses every five years, and the last one had been done in 2001.  Among the 14 member countries of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), seven would run censuses in 2000 and 2002.  Indeed, the SADC round of censuses in 2001/2000 had "taken off like a bomb".

Several questions were addressed to Mr. Abu-Libdeh for more information and clarification about the recent census.

He said that the census had been conducted in 1997.  The general myths had centred on the belief that the society comprised 2.2 million Palestinians.  Instead, the census had found that the country's population was 2.9 million.  While that figure might not be a big deal in large countries, it had reflected the one third growth of his country, "overnight".  Moreover, little had been known about the socio-economic characteristics of the population. 

The census, he said, had been the first chance to realize a number of things, including the percentage of those who had certain academic qualifications. It had been widely believed, for example, that the Palestinians were "terribly educated" and that some 15 per cent had earned graduate degrees.  That figure turned out to be 3.6 per cent.

Indeed, that first-ever census had been a "very serious eye-opener" to various sectors of the society.  That had led the nation to realize, overnight, that "yesterday was not the same as today".  There had been some general estimates of various characteristics based on surveys taken over many years.  For example, the government used to brag all the time that 54 per cent of its society were women.  Attempts had been made to convince the authorities that that was probably not the case.  Indeed, the 1997 census had revealed that women comprised only

49 per cent of the population. 

Other data concerned the situation within households, including the percentages with electricity, running water, and so-called durable goods, like refrigerators, cars and videos.

Previous censuses had been conducted, he said.  The last one had been done in September 1967 by the occupying Power at the time, Israel.  That had been used to establish legal residency rights of Palestinians –- "from the perspective of the Israelis".  Those who had been counted in the 1967 census had been considered residents of West Bank and Gaza, but those who had not fallen under that category were not counted. 

He highlighted a few other censuses.  He said that when Jordan was the "caretaker" of the West Bank, it had conducted two censuses in 1951 and 1961.  The "British mandate" had conducted two censuses, in 1922 and 1931, and so on.  But a census that was planned, executed, owned, empowered, and so forth, by Palestinians -– that was the first-ever census in the country.  "Out of the blue," he added, "we suddenly realized the distribution of the key characteristics of society".

One correspondent asked if any significant lessons had been learned that would make things easier in the next round of census taking in 10 years and provide countries with a better picture.

Mr. Habermann said that in the technological field, 10 years was a very long time.  The symposium was not really trying to predict future technologies.  Rather, it was exploring management strategies aimed at being prepared for future change.  Of course, the computer and telecommunications revolution had made enormous differences.  Data could be processed much more rapidly, archived, and disseminated.  Tabulations could also be done more quickly.

Some countries, such as Singapore, had done the majority of their censuses on the Internet, he added.  But that was a compact geographic area and fairly homogenous.  Whether Internet use grew in 10 years would depend on the extent to which countries were wired to the Internet.  That was hard to predict, but clearly one had to prepare for the possibility of a "wired society" and be ready to do more and more census counting via the Internet.

Ms. Bercovich said that, in Brazil, the computer had helped much in census taking.  Certain regions were particularly difficult to assess, such as the Amazon.  The fieldwork for the 2000 census had lasted three to four months, and had included interviews with many people in both rural and urban areas.  Along with computers, cellular telephones and the use of telecopiers had been a big help in terms of transmitting results. 

Mr. Banthia of India highlighted a number of aspects of his country's census taking, including publicity, for which the new technology, particularly mass communication through television, was really important.  The geographical information systems had been a real breakthrough and would allow for better planning for the people.  Data dissemination was very fast in India.  Provisional figures had been released within three weeks of collection.  That result from 600,000 villages in India was impressive, but "New York got it in 10 seconds on the Internet".  That was a case of technology speaking for itself.

Mr. Lehohla said that, in terms of managing large numbers of people, his country had truly benefited from technological innovation during the 1996 census, particularly the cellular phone.  The 2001 census had "leapfrogged" the technology of 1996 with the use of computer scanning, although that process had entailed some risks.  Another technological innovation had been electronic mapping, which had improved the management of the census, but had also meant employing a lot of people who were not necessarily census specialists. 

He added that strengthening the management of the office was a critical but daunting task.  His most recent horror story had occurred on 22 June when he learned that the local producer of paper questionnaires could not meet the deadline for the October census.  As he spoke, he said, questionnaires were being loaded from John F. Kennedy Airport in New York to South Africa. 

Replying to a question about whether people in countries besides the United States had also resisted participating in the questionnaires, Mr. Banthia said Afghanistan might be one such country, but he was not sure. 

Mr. Lehohla added that census taking was a social and political activity, and the nature of the response depended on the "state of society" at any given time.  While many nations had aspired to run censuses at regular intervals, the material conditions in a country might make it impossible to do so.  For instance, Cambodia's census taking in 1998 was the first after a lapse of some 30 years.  A number of countries lacked funding and were forced to postpone their censuses. 

Certain social, political and economic conditions could also affect a country's ability to "run a census".

Mr. Abu-Libdeh said that, in Gaza, of 1,022,000 people, only 18 had refused to participate in the census.  "The moral of my story is that, in my country, people took pride in participating in the census because they thought this is part of their good citizenzry".  The developed world was "a bit spoiled" in that regard, not only in the United States, but in some countries in Europe, as well. It was crucial for the population of a country to realize that responding to a census was a simple act of good citizenship, he added.

Asked to what extent politics had intruded on the work of census taking, particularly with respect to the elite not wanting minorities counted, Mr. Lehohla said that had depended on the stability of the country.  Indeed, census taking was a political activity because it led to political consequences.  At the same time, the level of participation in a country really depended on the level of patriotism and the civic-mindedness and sense of social responsibility of its people. 

In a follow-up question, the correspondent said his point was not so much about the willingness of people to be counted, but about the willingness of the elite to count them, and asked to what extent that had been a problem.

Mr. Lehohla said the question largely manifested itself in the "political temperature" of a nation.  If the stakes were high, participation in the census was also high.  In the last census, the levels of participation in South Africa had been high.

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