|
A Report to the Census
Monitoring and Observation Committee (MOC) of the Sudan
Author Pali Lehohla
Statistician-General
Statistics South Africa
17-01-2007
1. Executive
Summary
The Republic of Sudan
is preparing to conduct a census of the population
within the next 65 days. A date in April has been
proposed and is awaiting Presidential Decree. The
operations are conducted within a highly politicized
environment given the exigencies of conflict that still
linger in Sudan. This situation is particularly so in
the South and more importantly in Dafour, where open
skirmishes, battles and war continues from time to
time. However, as of a week ago, around the
commemoration of the anniversary of the Comprehensive
Peace Agreement, (CPA), the situation had improved
somewhat and the soldiers from the North and the South
have started retreating to agreed upon areas albeit with
hesitancy. Furthermore an agreement for deploying a
much stronger army holds prospects for peace. The fact
that this is happening holds out hope and prospects by
each passing day for conducting a census in an
environment that is far less prone to widespread
conflict. Following on the census will be an election
and a referendum for choice and type of political and
governance arrangements between the North and the
South. The link between a census and political
arrangements is very conspicuous and it is important to
be exceedingly sensitive on how well this link is
applied for delivering a successful census in a complex
political process and managed conflict.
Problem Statement:
This report
advises on key issues that would mitigate risks against
a successful census in Sudan. The author is sensitive
to the political fragility and in particular the
implications and impact to a successful census in Sudan
arising from a shallow skill level in the South. In
this regard the Sudanese census is not just a census but
it is an undertaken in conditions that are less than
optimal. School books that teach about census
undertaking would advise that a census be conducted
under conditions of calm and the situation in Sudan
challenges this assumption dramatically. The question
that arises is given that Sudan is restive albeit to a
less pronounced degree today than yester year, should a
census be abandoned or should extra effort on the census
be made for it to succeed in spite of the restive nature
in parts of the country. The political and financial
capital that has brought about the preparations and
driven the census to where it is suggests that a census
is now feasible in Sudan. What needs to be done is the
management of risks and the critical path.
Recommendation:
The date of April for the Census is feasible, what is
important is for the Census Office to manage the
associated risks outlined broadly below.
Conflict:
Expecting to run a census in conditions of complete
peace in the Sudan will be close to a dream and a
miracle. So any delays for either good or bad reasons
will negatively impact the confidence that is associated
with the CPA. Areas that are riddled with conflict have
to be identified and isolated in order for these to be
continuously engaged in a dialogue for a successful
enumeration in their jurisdiction, however difficult
this dialogue might be.
Recommendation:
A dedicated conflict resolution team to dialogue and
negotiate for cooperation has to be deployed to areas
identified as having conflict or are potentially exposed
to conflict that is directed at the census. Such a team
should be permanently dedicated with an outcome that
delivers successful enumeration, partial enumeration or
containment of conflict so that the conflict does not
bleed into areas that would be willing to be enumerated
or are being successfully enumerated.
Pre-enumeration:
Pre-enumeration activities that consist of mainly
mapping are nearly complete in the North where
electronic management of mapping information has been
implemented and this activity is close to completion.
The North manages mapping through electronic databases
across remote and or distant localities and this enables
efficiency and better turn-a-round times for consistency
checking of the data, including for determination and
management of materials and the critical deployment
tactics. In the South of Sudan the maps are paper based
sketch maps, a technology that predates the electronic
world of networks, however it works albeit with less
speed and efficiency and it is unlikely to be integrated
electronically. In the South mapping is about 70%
complete however, it is highly likely that the rest of
the South will also be as complete as is possible prior
to running the census. The mapping office in Khartoum
is eager and convinced that mapping as executed in the
north can be successfully concluded in the South, but
they are paralysed by indecisiveness on the matter.
Time has run out on this option and forcing it may
attract attention from training and other critical path
activities.
Recommendation:
The South should use scanned sketch maps, which later
can be used or be validated against digital data.
Mapping using GPS technology should therefore be
initiated in the South shortly after completion of
enumeration and mop-up and should continue until it is
completed. This will bring the South to par with the
North.
Funding:
This is not
seen as an impediment however, deploying it on time for
activities is problematic and causes delays.
Enumeration will be run using the long and short form
with ten percent of the areas using the long form. The
logistics of deploying these variable materials have the
potential of creating confusion and it is important that
an explicit contingency plan with clear decision tree
branches articulating what has to be decided under what
set of circumstances.
Recommendation:
The Statistics Office and cooperating partners should
release funds on time.
Long and short form:
There are
two forms being used in Sudan for the Census; the long
and the short form. The long form will cover 10% of the
country, whilst the short form will cover 90%. It is
not clear what occurs in an unlikely event that the
forms are distributed at the wrong destination. Say you
discover after a week that instead of the short form
going to a selected short form Enumeration Area it has
ended in the long form enumeration area. What are the
instructions to the enumerators? A clear set of
instructions on these types of end states and
circumstances should be provided for.
Recommendation:
The Census Office should issue a clear set of
instruction of managing risks should the problem
eventuate.
Data Processing:
This will be done and handled at multiple centres using
scanning technology. This strategy is useful
politically as it allows for state level participation,
but it is fraught with management difficulties
especially where skills are in short supply and
acquisition of perishables and spares is irregular and
less likely to be on site. It would be desirable that
this decision is reviewed in the very same light of a
census that occurs in conditions that are less
optimal.
My experience in this
area as we tried it in the Censuses of 1996 and of 2001
has been that, in 2001 we keyed in data at 9 different
centres in order to pursue political and skill transfer
objectives. This came at a high cost of management
having to quell striking staff across the country,
secondly difficulties of transferring the data and
merging the data sets in one database once they were
transferred to head office. This happened in 1996.
However as regards skill transfer a number of people
suddenly new how to manage key entry and the skill came
handy for the Western Cape Province in the
demutualization of Old Mutual and Sanlam where large
volumes of information had to be key entered. In 2001
we attempted another ambition for scanning in three
centres. The biggest problem we had was about
transferring images and more importantly management of
stores and supervision of processing activities. We
folded the activities in the two of three centres, paid
the staff a ‘disappointment fee” and operated at one
centre.
Recommendation:
The Census office should review its decision for
processing in multiple centres and consider processing
at one centre that is accessible to senior management.
It is also possible to deploy processing staff from
other parts of the country to participate in the
processing of the data in one central location and this
could still meet the political objectives of
participation.
Leadership:
The census leadership in the North and South has jelled
and any movement out of the offices or change of jobs by
any of them including terminations, prior to at least
September 2008 could distabilise the census. They are
the all important activity and what Sudanese have been
waiting for; a credible census and a noteworthy attempt
to enumerate the entire country and the public’s
eagerness to participate.
Recommendation:
That the leadership is kept intact and does not move
until at least four to six months after enumeration has
been completed to avoid unnecessary disruptions.
Advocacy and Publicity:
Publicity and advocacy for a census in the Sudan has not
started. A proclamation of a date of the census by Head
of State is now a burning issue that has entered a
crisis point given that there are only 65 days to a
census. Advocacy and Publicity should have long started
so that it enhances the image, level of awareness, test
willingness of the population to participate and their
understanding of benefits to a census given that it
forms a cornerstone to the CPA. The formulation of
messages to be made, slots to be bought in media both
print and electronic and the logo with the dates should
be concluded. A Presidential Decree publishing the date
cannot be delayed beyond 21st January without
undermining the Census. Regarding publicity and
advocacy, materials for popularizing the census have to
be produced and in their design there has to be dialogue
between the census office and those who specialize in
propagating ideas but in the main the ideas should
emanate from the office and be given form by the
publicity specialists.
A census in Sudan is
conducted under conditions of conflict and invariably a
number of contentious issues may arise that are not even
related to the census and they need to be addressed in a
crisis mode. All census staff should be provided with a
list of 10 or 15 things that are likely to be asked and
they should be able to read from this. This might be
the purpose of the census, how long is it going to run,
how much does it cost, where will the documents be
processed, what is the confidentiality around the census
and so on.
Recommendation:
The census office should produce content and negotiate
with publicity and advocacy specialists for the form and
channels this should take. The census office and the
advocacy/publicity team should prepare a crisis
communication strategy and frequently asked questions
reference card that everybody in the census should
have. A crisis management strategy has to be developed
including key message cards that each census staff
member should read from or refer to.
Integrated deployment
plan: It is
important at this stage to have an integrated deployment
plan that shows the names and numbers of resources that
will be deployed against each enumeration area and
against dates including against locations across which
the activities will be taking place. These should also
show dependencies and what risks are associated with
each of those risks. For instance, the pilot has shown
that females may wish to be enumerated by a female.
What happens when the reality might be that there are no
females in a particular area who are sufficiently
literate? What is the plan to mitigate the problem?
Recommendation:
An integrated deployment plan should be presented to the
MOC and this should be used as a checklist of what MOC
will be looking for
Questionnaires and
Manuals: The
questionnaires and the relevant content have been
completed and the manual for interpreting the
questionnaire. What is not as clear is the question of
the number of questionnaires that have to be printed.
The rule of thumb would be print questionnaires such
that they are twice the number of households. An
inclination amongst enumerators that there is scarcity
will generate serious problems especially in terms of
individuals hoarding all the questionnaires for fear
that the questionnaires would run out. Shortages
represent a more dangerous form of problems than
surpluses.
Recommendation:
Print questionnaires such that they are twice the number
of households.
Human resource for
supporting the MOC:
I have had the benefit of reading the report by
Ubombo-Jaswa, a consultant to MOC, and I concur with the
terms of reference although the MOC may wish to modify
the number of days and budgets. What is important is to
request the African census offices to submit CVs of
competent persons to be deployed by MOC in Sudan. A
team of people run a shortlist and recommend to the MOC
who should be appointed as a support structure to MOC.
Recommendation:
To advertise at the first Statistics Commission and
invite offices and officials to submit their CVs to MOC
for evaluation and shortlisting with the purpose of
deployment during the census.
2. Background
and Context
An encouraging
development on the African continent is the increasing
awareness and importance that African governments accord
a population census. In the decade of the 1980’s many
African countries were not able to conduct a census for
a variety of reasons and these ranged from lack of
funds, lack of political will, bad and incompetent
leadership of the statistics offices and conflict that
consumed a significant number of countries. By the 90s
with rapidly declining and elimination of East-West
tensions, the stage was set for the advent of the
Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The move of
countries away from war and societies and leadership
began dialogued the value of information, it was very
evident that by 2005 the African continent had entered
an era where the issue was not about if but about when
the country conducts a population census in this census
decade.
The 2010 decade
therefore will see all African countries plan for a
census which shamefully occurs after decades of the
leadership and citizenry has kept itself ignorant about
the potential and real human resource base these nations
possess. Focus especially has been placed on countries
emerging out of conflict and in this regard the African
Symposia for Statistical Development has committed to
ensuring that this desire and commitment to these
countries is kept. In this regard, countries such as
Angola, DRC, Somalia and Sudan will receive special
attention from the Friends of the ECA in their desire to
conduct a census after their decades of strife and
conflict.
A census is seen as
particularly important not only for playing its
historical role of providing facts about the populations
of countries, but for the nation building role it plays
in society. The nation building notion that a census
ushers is of particular import in countries that emerge
from conflict. For instance the Comprehensive Peace
Agreement of the Sudan is anchored on a census being
successfully conducted within two years of signing the
peace agreement. The link between a census, power
sharing and automatically political decisions becomes
exceedingly obvious and compelling when we take into
account the chronological arrangement of censuses and
elections. In most of these countries a census precedes
an election and in fact the success of an election is
predicated upon a successful census.
Key
Success Factors and Specific Requirements
Sudan is one such
country where conflict was so significant and
destabilizing that whilst the northern part of the
country has had successive censuses up to 1993, the
South has had a very scanty account of the populations
of this region. The census that is planned for 2008
marks a watershed victory to account for the population
of the Sudan consumed |
