Vice President Jewel Howard Taylor has rallied the public to be counted in the ongoing national population and housing census despite of its shaky start.
She told Liberians during yesterday’s Ministry of Information, Cultural Affairs and Tourism (MICAT) press briefing that those hurdles that were hindering the process have been handled.
She then boasted by assuring public trust that the exercise is on course following the commitment of additional funding to the process by the government.
“Census is an important tool to the development of our country. Therefore, it should not be politicized. Though, there have been sticky issues, but that have been handled as enumerators are in the field carrying out their work,” she noted.
The Veep further urged the religious and opposition community, civil society organizations as well as the media to play their part by telling the population to be counted during this exercise.
Despite a no-show start to the much-trumpeted 2022 National Population and Housing Census on Friday, November 11, the government and its partners maintained that the census is on course.
A national holiday was declared last Friday, November 11, to enable citizens to stay home and be counted, but many waited in vain as enumerators did not show up at their homes.
However, government and its partners announced in a release Friday evening reaffirming their commitment to the exercise which is expected to end on November 22.
It was signed by Finance and Planning Development Minister, Samuel Tweah on behalf of the government, while Niels Scott, United Nations Resident Coordinator, Bidisha Pillai, Resident Representative United Nations Fund for Population Activities (UNFPA), Khwima Nthara, Country Manager, World Bank, Urban Sjöström Ambassador, Kingdom of Sweden and Jim Wright Mission Director, United States Agency for International Development (USAID) signed for the international partners.
It observed that population and housing census is among the most complex and massive peacetime exercises a nation can undertake. The exercise, a constitutional mandate, involves the complete enumeration of the population in a country.
The aim is to generate a wealth of data, including numbers of people, their spatial distribution, age, and sex structure, as well as their living conditions and other key socioeconomic characteristics.
These data are critical for good governance, policy formulation, development planning, crisis prevention, mitigation and response, social welfare programs and business market analyses.
