ON FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 2022 Liberians across the nation stayed home to participate in the 2022 National Population and Housing Census. The population and housing census is among the most complex and massive peacetime exercises a nation can undertake. A census, as mandated within the Constitution, involves the complete enumeration of the population in the country. It generates a wealth of data, including numbers of people, their spatial distribution, age and sex structure, as well as their living condition and other key socioeconomic characteristics. These data are critical for good governance, policy formulation, development planning, crisis prevention, mitigation and response, social welfare programs and business market analyses, among others.
WITH THIS CRITICAL importance to the development of the nation, we hail the government of President George Manneh Weah and the international partners for successfully completing the LISGIS processes leading up to the commencement of the census. We join the government and its international partners in affirming our continued commitment to the successful conduct of the 2022 National Population and Housing Census, which will be accomplished from November 11—22, 2022.
WE FIND UNACCEPTABLE and contrary to the public policy of the Weah administration the call in certain quarters for people to boycott the census. Samuel D. Tweh, Jr., Minister of Finance and Development Planning; Niels Scott, UN Resident Coordinator; Bidisha Pillai, Resident Representative, UNFPA; Khwima Nthara, Country Manager, World Bank; H.E. Urban Sjöström, Ambassador, Kingdom of Sweden; and Jim Wright, Mission Director, USAID, have registered this concern to the dismay of many. They have warned that “any further disruption would lead to delays in, or possible abortion, of the census, which will benefit no one”.
ACCORDING TO THE partners, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), leading the international partnership, is providing technical and financial support to the Liberia Institute of Statistics and Geo-Information Services (LISGIS), the agency of the government with the authority to conduct census-taking, to ensure the census house listing an enumeration is completed within the timeframe, as announced by the Liberian government. No one, politician or not, should be calling for the boycott of what is in the national interest.
“THE INTERNATIONAL PARTNERS’ support is aimed at ensuring that the 2022 National Population and Housing Census is of high quality, and upholds international principles and standards. The unique advantage of the census is that it represents the entire statistical universe, down to the smallest geographical/administrative area of a country or region,” the GOL partners have said.
“THE GOVERNMENT OF Liberia (GOL) and International partners wish to appeal to all citizens, residents and visitors to peacefully support the on-going 2022 National Population and Housing Census by welcoming the census enumerators to their homes and facilities and to allow them to do their work. Remember that census takes place every 10 years, and the process gives an individual the opportunity to be heard and counted. So let’s make this census count.”