By Ivan Kaahwa

UBOS will begin counting the population starting on 10th May 2024. The 9th of May 2024 has been gazetted as Census Night, to which all questions related to the census will be referred. According to UBOS officials, members of the public are urged to remember the individuals who spent the night of 9th May 2024 in their households to prevent double counting.

Census night serves as a reference point for the Census, and individuals who have moved will be asked where they spent the night of 9th May. Institutional questionnaires have been prepared to account for the floating population. When enumerators visit households, they will inquire about who slept there on the night of 9th May 2024. The enumerators will conduct the exercise from 7am to 6pm, with no activities scheduled for the night.

The training for officers to lead the exercise has been concluded at the district level. On 1st May, training for parish and subcounty supervisors, as well as enumerators who are the field staff and data collectors, will be conducted.

UBOS has collaborated with the Uganda Police Force to ensure the protection of government property and the smooth progress of the exercise without inconvenience.

To facilitate a technologically-driven exercise, at least 120,000 tablets have been procured. All questionnaires have been updated, and every enumerator is expected to have access to the tablets.

In response to inquiries about the relevance of physically counting the populace when entities like NIRA have technological capacities to provide information, Didacus Okoth, Senior Public Relations Officer at UBOS, argued that UBOS has advanced by using technology, which will allow for the timely release of data compared to the paper-based collection methods used in previous years. He emphasized that the quality and timeliness of data release will be enhanced, with provisional results expected by September and final results by December.

147 UBOS staff members are working at the municipality level, collaborating with clerks, RDCs, CAOs, and district planners to ensure a clear understanding of the exercise.

10th May 2024 has been declared a public holiday to facilitate the 6th Post-Independence National Population and Housing Census 2024.

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