The slogan: “Everyone Counts, Get Counted”
The Gambia is finally set to conduct a digital population and housing census for the first time from May 25 to June 14, 2024. The 2024 Population and Housing Census (PHC) will be implemented by The Gambia Bureau of Statistics (GBoS) in collaboration with all relevant government stakeholders and development partners. Financial and technical support for the conduct of the census is provided by the government of the Gambia, the World Bank, United Nations Population Fund, and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA). A Population and Housing Census is conducted every 10 years in The Gambia. The last population and housing census was conducted in April 2013.
The main objective of conducting the 2024 population and housing census is to provide statistics on the population’s demographic, social and economic characteristics and household and housing characteristics. This information helps Central and Local Governments to plan for various social services such as education, health, housing, sanitation, and others. The information that will be derived from the census will also help the private sector, including businesses to plan their activities, which will be of benefit to the economic development of this country. The 2024 PHC will also respond to the data needs of the National Development Plan (2024-2028) and provide data for monitoring regional (ECOWAS vision 2050), continental (Africa Union Agenda 2063) and the Global agenda (Agenda 2030).
The Gambia Bureau of Statistics (GBoS) will conduct a pilot census at selected districts of each region from March 5th to March 24th, 2024 to test the adequacy and efficiency of the overall census process. This includes testing the census methodology, questionnaires, data collection methods, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) solutions related to fieldwork, daily data transfers to the data repository/server, efficiency of connectivity and synchronization and various aspects regarding the organization of the enumeration process. The pilot census will provide information needed to better understand the potential challenges and obstacles in successfully conducting the census, thus ensuring high-quality collected information.
All persons who spend the census night in the Gambia will be counted. This includes all persons who spent the night in a household, all persons who spend the census night in an institution (Group Quarters) and all outdoor sleepers and those in transit in the Gambia (floating population) on census night.
During the pilot and the actual census, field workers will visit households from 8:00 am to 7:00 pm, and can be identified by census Identification Cards (IDs), T-shirts/caps/uniforms and protective clothing carrying the GBoS logo.
Recruitment for the census field officers will be done online. All interested applicants will be required to apply online when GBoS deploys the registration system. The public will be informed when the system is set/ready to receive the applications.
The population and housing census is an enormous national exercise involving everybody in the Gambia. The general public is therefore duly requested to cooperate during data collection.
Signed: Statistician General
Gambia Bureau of Statistics (GBoS)
