Georgia Population and Household Census Starts
Wednesday, November 5
On November 4, 2014, at the Hotel Radisson Blu Iveria, a press-conference was held by Ms. Meri Daushvili, the Executive Director of the National Statistics Office of Georgia (GeoStat), Ms. Martina Quick, the Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Ambassador of Sweden to Georgia and Armenia and Ms. Lela Bakradze, Assistant Representative, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) Country Office in Georgia to highlight the importance of donors’ support to Georgia General Population and Housing Census 2014.
From November 5, 2014 the National Statistics Office of Georgia (GeoStat) starts the General Population and Housing Census. The Census will proceed for 15 days and will end on November 19 and will cover whole territory of Georgia except Abkhazia and the Tskhinvali region/South Ossetia.
All the Georgian citizens, as well as foreign citizens residing in Georgia and persons without citizenships are expected to participate in the Census.
The Census, with its scale and content, represents a unique source of data and information on social, economic and demographic state of the population. Census will enable generating the most updated information on the size of the population, its sex and age structure, employment, education, health, livelihood and household conditions.
The Government of Sweden and the UNFPA signed the Co-Financing Contribution Agreement to provide support to the Population Census 2014 and thus to contribute to improving statistics quality data availability in Georgia. According to the afore-mentioned Agreement, the Government of Sweden has allocated over 1,100,000 USD while the contribution of UNFPA in 2014 totals to 200,000 USD.
The primary objective of the Donors’ assistance is to support the effective implementation of the Population Census 2014 comprising of several components, in particular: establishing the data collection supervision and quality assurance system; organizing a multi-media campaign aiming at public awareness raising on the importance of quality gender-disaggregated Census data collection; printing of Population Census questionnaires. The National Statistics Office of Georgia is the Implementing Partner of the project.
The Article 28 of the Law of Georgia on “Official Statistics” protects the confidentiality of the personal data collected during the census, which is not the subject of disclosure. The personal data about the respondent is stored according to the rules defined in the Georgian legislation.
According to the UN Recommendations for the 2010 Round of World Population and Housing Census, the Agricultural Census will be conducted simultaneously with the Population and Housing Census 2014. Thus, the information about households’ agricultural activities will also be generated along with the socio-demographic data. This approach enables efficient utilization of human and financial resources, as the agricultural activity and production is mainly carried out within the household sector in Georgia. Hence, data on the structure of utilized agricultural land in the ownership of households, livestock and poultry units, agricultural machinery and other important issues will be collected on municipal, territorial units’ and rural levels.
The National Statistics Office of Georgia appeals to Georgian Population with the request to assist the interviewers in conducting the census and provide them with the most objective information to ensure comprehensive and high quality implementation of the Census.
On 15-29 September 2014, the Population Census was conducted in the municipalities of high-mountainous districts of Mestia, Kazbegi, Dusheti (Gudamakari, Kvesheti, Khevsureti, Uakanapshavi, Shatili, Magharoskari communities) and Akhmeta (Omalo community) to avoid possible disturbances during the Census process prompted by possible worsened weather conditions expected in November in those districts.
The Census preliminary data will be available in April 2015, whereas the Census final results will be published in April 2016.
Based on its mandate, the United Nations Population Fund provides support to implementation of population and housing censuses in many countries across the globe. Over 15 years of its presence in Georgia UNFPA has been supporting improved collection of demographic data and its analyses. Within the second (2011-2015) Country Programme UNFPA continues providing financial and technical support for Population Census 2014, quality data collection, analysis and dissemination, coordination of Donors’ assistance, etc.
