Zimbabwe on Thursday began its fifth national population census, which will see thousands of enumerators move across the southern African country over the next 10 days for an exercise held once every decade.
According to the Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency (ZIMSTAT), over 40,000 enumerators would conduct door-to-door visits to households in the country’s 10 provinces during the census that is expected to run from April 21-30.
Preliminary results are expected in August this year, with final results due around October.
The results would be used in the delimitation of constituencies ahead of next year’s general elections.
Zimbabwe’s population stood at around 14 million at the last census that was held in 2012.
For the first time the census would be paperless as ZIMSTAT would use the computer-assisted personal interviewing (CAPI) technique to collect data.
CAPI is a face-to-face data collection method in which the interview uses a tablet, mobile phone or laptop to record answers given during the interview.
According to ZIMSTAT, the system is more efficient as it avoids mistakes by facilitating logic checks, skip patterns and validations.
Previous population censuses were held in 1982, 1992, 2002 and 2012.
JN/APA