LET'S ALL SUPPORT CENSUS (SEPT 27, 2010)

THE Bible recounts in Luke 2: 1-5 that a time came in those days when Caesar Augustus decreed that all the world should be counted. According to the passage, the decree by Caesar Augustus was a continuation of an exercise that first took place while Quirinius was governing Syria.
In line with the decree, everyone was expected to travel to his home town, and so Joseph had to travel from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, to Bethlehem, together with his wife, Mary, who was then pregnant.
More than 2,000 years after that exercise first took place, population census has been a regular global activity and today, it has even become more relevant in ensuring proper development planning.
It is in this vein that countries all over the world undertake censuses every 10 years as recommended by the United Nations (UN) to know the exact number of people living in those countries and to collect relevant demographic data that would enable their respective governments to plan for their development.
Ghana has undertaken a number of censuses over the years, the last one being in 2000, which estimated the country’s population at 20 million. Since that census, the population dynamics of the country have changed considerably and the current enumeration exercise, which began last midnight, is yet another effort to update the country’s demographic data to enhance national development.
Specifically, the data collected in the enumeration exercise, together with macro-data from other sources such as the Ghana Living Standards Survey (GLSS), the Core Welfare Indicator Questionnaire Survey (CWIQ) and the Ghana Demographic and Health Survey (GDHS) will provide the needed data to enhance national development planning in all the economic sectors.
The data will also help the Electoral Commission to revise electoral areas and constituencies, as well as help the government track the progress of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
It is for this important reason that the Daily Graphic wishes to encourage everybody to contribute to the success of the census by giving accurate information to census enumerators who will visit their homes.
One focus of this year’s census is the collection of data on people with disability to enable the government to formulate policies that will promote their welfare. In that regard, we wish to encourage people who have children or relatives with disability to make them available for counting.
It is a practice among some societies to keep their relatives with disability away from public view, but such beliefs and practices must be discarded in this exercise in order to ensure a successful census that would enhance national development.
Following this exercise, many schools, roads, hospitals and other social infrastructure will be constructed, and so it is important for everyone to take active part in the census to make it successful.
This is a national exercise that requires the support of all and so it should not be left in the hands of only officials of the Ghana Statistical Service and the National Census Secretariat.
The Daily Graphic believes that we all have a role to play in this exercise and we must not fail the nation.