Over 20,000 enumerators are being trained across the country as part of the preparation of national population and housing census, Yusuf Murangwa, Director General of the National Institute of Statistics of Rwanda (NISR) has told The New Times.

The training, which will end on August 9, will be followed by the activity of enumerating homes from August 10 to 14.

The government of Rwanda usually conducts a population census every decade to update demographic, social, economic and cultural characteristics of the population.

From August 16 to 30, the government, through NISR, will conduct the fifth census, which according to Murangwa will take a total budget of Rwf 30 billion given that it takes around four years of preparation.

The outcomes will feature multiple aspects and characteristics of Rwanda’s population including demographic, social, economic and cultural characteristics and its distribution up to village level.

Other aspects include population structure and trends of fertility, mortality and migration, population projections, economic activities, housing characteristics, and indicators for particular groups of the population such as female, children, youth, elderly, and disabled persons.

He said they will be counting how many people are in Rwanda, their age, what characterises them, their education, and housing, among others.

According to Murangwa, they will use technology in census operations in replacement of paper questionnaires, to reduce the time between data collection and publication of census results.

He urged people to spend the night of August 15 (Census Night) in their homes.

That, according to him, will help enumerators correct accurate information of all the population in the country.

Talking about why the institution waits for ten years to conduct another census, he said, "Ten years is not too much or less but rather moderate and the information corrected in that time is not yet old to the extent of affecting other research that we do. In addition, the census is very expensive because it concerns all the population and involves a lot of work which is hard to be conducted, let’s say, every year.”

He urged the public to help enumerators by complying with their rendezvous and giving them accurate information.

He added that NISR will reveal probation results from the census before the end of 2022.