27th June 2021 Set As Census Night: Full Speech Of Dr Bawumia

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Even as Ghana failed to conduct population and housing census in 2020 owing to the outburst of the deadly Covid-19 pandemic, 2021 has been confirmed as a possible year to conduct the third census in the country.

This was revealed as the vice president of Ghana H.E. launched the 100 day countdown thereby announcing 27th June 2021 as the Census night.

Below is the full speech of second gentleman of the land with respect to

KEYNOTE ADDRESS DELIVERED BY
H.E. ALHAJI DR. MAHAMUDU BAWUMIA
VICE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF GHANA

FRIDAY, 19th March, 2021
10:00 AM
Alisa Hotel
ACCRA

Salutations
Mr. Chairman,
Honourable Minister for Information,
Chairman of the Ghana Statistical Service Governing Board
Government Statistician
Directors and Representatives of MDAs
Development Partners
Members of the Media
Distinguished Invited Guests
Ladies and Gentlemen

Good morning everyone. It is a great honour to be here today and I want to thank you all for honouring the invitation.

On behalf of his Excellency, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, President of the Republic of Ghana, l welcome you to this important event to mark the start of the Final 100 days to the 2021 Population and Housing Census.

The next 100 hundred days are very important to the conduct of our 3rd Population and Housing Census. Despite the couple of slips in the conduct of Population Censuses in Ghana in our modern history, Ghana has been fairly consistent in counting, knowing and understanding its population size, structure and dynamics.

While many people often think of Population Censuses as only the count of persons, the full dimension of the census goes much deeper. How many are we, what is the gender mix, the age mix, the birth and death and migration, what we do for a living, even where we live, the quality of our housing, and our access to public services – health and education. So we do more than just count people.

The population of Ghana has increased from 6.7 million persons from 1960 to 24.6 million in 2010 and by some projection we are around 30 million. The 2021 Census will provide updated information on the population and will further help us track where we are on many fronts in our development path, including how close we are in pursuing the international, national, regional, and global development goals.

Ladies and gentlemen, the 2021 Census will provide important data for the formulation of policies to transform Ghana’s economy and spur economic development. Knowing the dynamics of how the population is changing helps us in planning our education needs, where to locate health facilities, how to allocate our social expenditures and identify those who need help the most in our society.

COVID-19 uncovered some of the weaknesses in our social protection for many, especially in their access to health and housing. Let us take advantage of the pandemic to re-group in many areas of our everyday lives and the Census can only help with that information and concrete data.

Ladies and gentlemen, we are at the cusp of a technology revolution. Countries are constantly rolling out new technology applications to improve daily lives, improve public administration, how government works and how government delivers services to the public. Ghana cannot be left behind in this march of technological innovation.

We are building a data-based digital society. In just over 2 years, Ghanaians have witnessed the fast pace of digitization from the Ghana Card, Digital Addressing System, the Interoperability of the Payment System, the Ghana portal service.

As announced by the President in his State of the Nation Address, we have set a digitization agenda to improve the efficiency of many government agencies. Certainly, the Ghana Statistical Services is not to be left behind.

The Statistical Service will this year conduct its first digital population and housing census focusing especially on five areas that will uniquely provide for our current transformation agenda.

Technology and Digitization Agenda

I am highly impressed that the GSS has incorporated ICT module in the Census to ascertain the level of digital application and access in the country. Indeed, the Census will provide comprehensive data on ICT access and usage in the country to enhance development in the sector.

We are interested in the penetration in the rural areas, internet usage, ownership of ICT devices, usage of mobile phones for financial transactions, and how ICT may be changing lives and affecting livelihoods.

Ladies and gentlemen, the use of tablets for data capture will greatly improve data quality and reduce data processing time. Another is the expansion of the questionnaire to collect detailed information on usage of ICT including internet usage, ownership of ICT devices and so on.

Housing Data

Housing conditions and living arrangements among various population sub-groups serve as indicators of socio-economic status and wellbeing. Inclusion of housing conditions module in the 2021 Population and Housing Census (PHC) makes it possible to provide data to assess the adequacy of housing stock and to determine the nature of the housing deficit in the country, where we are falling short and those most in need.

The housing conditions module will provide data to assess the quality of housing, availability of utilities in the dwelling units as well as to determine housing tenure arrangements. The module will also capture, better than before, the sanitation conditions in our communities.

Building Data Interoperability

The PHC of 2021 will also see us implement for the first time data linkage technology that is intended to harmonize and improve statistics in the subregion. The implementation of the Harmonising and Improving Statistics in West Africa Project (2020−2024) is intended to ensure efficient data production through cooperation and partnership with National Statistics Offices of seven West African countries as well as 20 MDAs.

Geo-spatial data
It is worth noting that the National Development Planning Commission and United Nations have made poverty reduction their goal and prime target in line with, for instance, Goal 1 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), that calls for “no poverty” with emphasis on ending poverty in all forms and everywhere.

Member countries, including Ghana, have pledged to “Leave No One Behind”. The underlying challenge is to identify the poor in Ghana and where they live.

Ladies and gentlemen, I am encouraged by the effort GSS is making to use geo-spatial data to make small area analysis possible so we can identify and provide detailed breakdown of poor households in the country.

This provision makes for better targeting of poverty alleviation measures. It would enable the Government to develop effective and efficient pro-poor policies, programmes, projects and agenda. The geo-spatial data from the Census will enable the GSS and other stakeholders develop multi-dimensional poverty index and human development index that will help greatly in winning the fight against poverty in the country.

Ghana Digital Postal Address system

Ladies and gentlemen, the 2021 Population and Housing Census would also provide additional information to update the digital address system in the country. With this update, the police, health providers, fire and ambulance services can easily identify incident locations to save lives at a faster rate.

Census in Times of COVID-19
Mr. Chairman, COVID-19 has cut a deep path of change in the way we would normally carry out activities in our everyday lives. COVID has seized up economies, making public choices and decision making anything but an art of determined political will riding on the back of scientific sound advice. It is for that reason that government was compelled to postpone the conduct of the census in 2020.

The present efforts show that the Government of Ghana remains committed to the conduct of this decennial census, as required by Clause 34 of the Statistical Service Act, 2019 (Act 1003).

With a budget of GH₵521.3m, Government has already mobilized and disbursed GHS449.7m for the conduct of the 2021 PHC.

Our progress so far in the preparatory activities of the Census has benefitted from the assistance of our development partners. We wish to express our profound gratitude to the World Bank for their support, and to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) for demonstrating commitment as the lead development partner agency responsible for the conduct of the Census. We recognize the technical assistance of an International Chief Technical Advisor for the 2021 PHC. We also acknowledge the support from the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa and the Office of the National Statistics, United Nations.

My engagement with the Government Statistician suggests that because of the disaggregation of the data for all the soon to be 261 districts, more than 2.6 million indicators will be derived from the 2021 Population and Housing Census to guide our development plans, implementation, monitoring, evaluation and reporting.

Ladies and Gentlemen, we are confident that the Ghana Statistical Service working with other census implementing partners, will deliver a successful census.

I am informed that key preparatory activities necessary for the exercise have been completed. These include:

the mapping of the entire country and demarcation of 51,911 Enumeration Areas,

recruitment of trainers and district data quality management teams, and

procurement of logistics.

Other key activities such as the training of trainers, recruitment of enumerators and preparation of tablets for data collection, are ongoing and will be completed within the next 60 days.

The Ghana Statistical Service in consultation with the Office of the President has endorsed the Census Night date of Sunday 27th June, and approved by the National Census Steering Committee.

This all-important date will be the reference for all information to be collected on the population during the census and will mark the beginning of the enumeration phase of the census exercise.

You are here today because the Census outcome matters to you. We are asking for your support in the lead up to the Census Night. Within the next 100 days, GSS will spearhead a nationwide publicity, education and advocacy campaign aimed to mobilise resources, sensitise stakeholders, develop strategic partnerships, and build public trust for the Census.

The Census is a priority development activity and requires mobilisation of state resources and utilisation of the existing state infrastructure. As such, the President is committed to ensuring that the Ghana Statistical Service receives the required support from all Ministries, Departments and Agencies and from all Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies.

We thank you in advance for your support and we look forward to working with you to conduct a successful 2021 Population and Housing Census.

You count, so get counted.

Thank you.
God Bless our Homeland Ghana.

By: Nana Gyasi| Radio 1 | Ghana