THE government is conducting census trial runs in selected areas in all the country’s 10 provinces ahead of the 2012 population count.
Officials said the exercise, which began on August 18 and runs until August 28, is designed to “test various census instruments”.
The programme, being run by the Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency (Zimstat), will identify problems with the system which should be fixed by this time next year when the census is held.
Zimstat, previously known as the Central Statistical Office, has been conducting a census every 10 years since 1982. The last count in 2002 put Zimbabwe’s total population at slightly over 12 million.
Zimstat Census Manager Washington Mateta said: “People should get ready to be counted. We want to appeal to people to minimise movement next year during the same period so that it becomes easier for enumerators to count everyone and that we get reliable statistics.”
The pilot census programme, he said, was being conducted by 100 enumerators and 20 supervisors – all seconded by government departments.
“We are doing exactly what we will be doing next year and we urge people to cooperate. Some enumeration areas are almost through as we test census instruments which include questionnaires, enumeration methods, manuals, data processing methods as well as logistics and administrative arrangements for the main census,” said Mateta.
Zimstat picked two wards in every province except Bulawayo and Harare – one urban and one rural.
Analysts expect the next census to show either a drop in population growth or stagnation after a political and economic crisis drove more than a million Zimbabweans out of the country over the last decade.