Grenada launches Census as CARICOM prepares to get counted
Grenada on Thursday, 10 June launched its National of Population and Housing Census.
The Census activities will begin on 15 September under the theme ‘Count us’. The slogan is ‘Nothing about us, without us because we all count!’
Grenada is among several Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Member States which will conduct Census activities in 2021. Barbados, The Bahamas and Cayman Islands have scheduled their Censuses for this year. Activities as part of the 2020 Round of Population and Housing Census should have started last year but the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted those plans.
The Population and Housing Census is the largest statistical exercise a country can undertake providing information at the small geographic levels of countries for more effective governance in communities and villages within countries. It is a key data source to inform the national priorities and development plans of countries.
Grenada Finance Minister, the Hon. Gregory Bowen, was the featured speaker at the event and he reminded his countrymen and women that it was their civic duty to participate in the exercise. He said the Census was an important component of national stocktaking, and positioned the exercise as critical to rebounding from the pandemic and meeting the country’s obligations under the 2030 Development Agenda.
He added that the data collected would be significant to the country’s development as well as to the economies of the rest of the Region and the world.
This year marks the first time that the Census will be paperless in Grenada. The Minister said that it was the general expectation that with the use of technology, the quality and security of data and the timeliness of the exercises would be improved.
Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Finance, Mr. Mike Sylvester as well as Grenada Director of Statistics and Census Officer, Mr. Halim Brizan, also spoke at the event.
Mr. Brizan explained that the Census would be done in three phases: Preparatory – which includes mapping, questionnaire development and pretesting; Census stage of which enumeration is a key component; and Post-Census during which data processing, analysis and dissemination, among other activities would be conducted.
Source: CARICOM TODAY