A ‘Census with a Difference’ is how ministry personnel from the statistics department described the upcoming Saint Lucia National Housing and Population Census.
The national population census is now back on – following setbacks due to the COVID-19 pandemic. And this time, an agriculture component will be an added feature incorporated into the survey.
The project had previously been announced in March 2020, but had to be postponed as a result of the negating factors brought on by the pandemic.
In the meantime, the department of statistics continued to formalise plans for the upcoming survey; now ministry officials have disclosed that the census is due to commence this May.
“A central feature of the census will be the incorporation of an agricultural component,” stated consultant statistician Edwin St Catherine.
He explained that the 2016 census did not include an agricultural component and so, consequently, “we need to find a way to incorporate a small module into the census to set up a frame for us to then go and then identify holdings later.”
St Catherine said the process will entail ministry staffers visiting the ‘identified holdings’ to carry out more in-depth investigations into “what has happened to agriculture, since 2006.”
According to ministry personnel, this census will differ from other ‘population count’ surveys previously undertaken to include three components.
A business survey is another aspect that has been included in the exercise.
An official from the department of statistics explained that tablets will be utilized for the first time to undertake the survey “and it would be a paper-based census”.
“The second reason that this one is a paper-based census is that we would use the opportunity that the census affords us to do an establishment census,” said Sean Mathurin, Economist/Statistician.
He noted that conducting such an exercise during the pandemic poses challenges, “because the intention is for us to visit every single establishment on the island.”
Mathurin said the other reason why this exercise is being viewed as a “census with a difference” is because it is the first time a census has been undertaken during a pandemic.
“We have never undertaken a census during a pandemic and like the business census, the objective of the housing and population census is to visit every single household on the island,” he reiterated.
The health ministry also stands to benefit from this census and will be able to utilize data collected from the survey.
Noting the importance of the project, Glensford Joseph, Medical Officer of Health said “it is of great value to us, in allowing us to calculate many of the important indicators that we present to you on a daily basis and the activities that we conduct.”
He added that the ministry has kept the public in tune with COVID updates on data collected from respective communities “and the information generated from this activity is of great value in allowing us …to provide you, the general public with that information.”
The census is intended to determine the demography of the country, including gender, age, the prevalence of crime, assets of households and employment experiences.
Leading up to this latest exercise, in 2020, the Central Statistical Office concluded a four-day training exercise for mappers where 35 persons from across the island were trained for the census mapping exercise.
According to ministry sources, the upcoming exercise would include the collection of Global Positioning System (GPS) locations for every building on the island.
It is expected that the information gathered from this exercise will facilitate the formation of maps that will be used to identify buildings to be visited during the enumeration process of the 2020 Population and Housing Census.