On Wednesday, February 22, 2023, the Liberia Institute for Statistics and Geo-Information Services (LISGIS) released its provisional 2022 National Housing and Population Census (NHPC) result which the government and its international partners praised.
The process kicked off on Friday, November 11, 2022, but on bad footing marred by both administrative and logistical hitches compounded by the waves of protests and disenchantment expressed by those recruited for the exercise over stipends and conditions of service as perhaps stated in their contracts.
For example, many residents in various parts of the country including the capital, Monrovia complained of not being counted and to compound the situation, some census experts mainly locals, criticized the implementation of the exercise, saying the there were many “professional flaws” in the exercise.
But LISGIS and donors said initial lapses were taken care off and that the process was on course and being done rightly and professionally. The statistics house earlier result states that the country’s population stands at 5.2.
Notwithstanding, how realistic is the 2022 population census when growth in developing countries and Liberia is no exception mainly in the urban areas that foster economic development instead of in the rural communities.
Because the 2022 population census showed high population growth for counties experiencing low economic activities, limited employment opportunities, little access to markets among others; as a result of the situation, this brings into questioned the credibility of the entire census process.
Moreover, most counties like Grand Gedeh, Grand Kru, Rivergee, Sinoe and Rivercess in the southeastern belt of the country, are the highest users of contraceptives as the 2013 Liberia Demographic and Health Survey (LDHS) reported that 22 percents of said population are users of such contraceptive.
The mere fact is that those counties have reported the least opportunities for migration, with little attraction for domicile, and with the highest use of contraceptive and to attract high population growth create room for more questioning of the census result.
Therefore, we believe that LISGIS needs to explain this variation in these numbers and factors that inform the result, averring that its data are not conflicted; they speak to each other, accentuating that the report on contraceptive use, to cite the least, is not speaking to result provided by LISGIS. So, we too are waiting and wondering if LISGIS has its final result of the census, now that the BVR is almost climaxing the exercise in phase 1 counties.
