The Ethiopian Central Statistics Agency (CSA) has said that preparations have been finalized to undertake Ethiopias first ever digital technology-assisted national population and housing census. The East African country will embrace Chinese technologies during the upcoming Fourth National Population and Housing Census, which is scheduled to take place from April 7 to 28, according to the CSA. The CSA had previously revealed the purchase of close to 180,000 tablets from Chinese technology giants, Huawei and Lenovo, to effectively conduct the population and housing census, which is held about every 10 year. The products, which had been tested and approved by the agency, will be circulated across Ethiopia as the East African country embarked on its first-ever digital population and housing census procedure, which includes the use of mobile tablets for data collection through five major local Ethiopian languages. Biratu Yigezu, Director General of CSA, said on Wednesday that the previous censuses that Ethiopia was conducted some 11 years ago was challenging as the total procedure was carried out in a paper-based manner. The new technology is crucial to report and register the actual data straight to the system without any loss of facts in the process and it reduces time, Yigezu told reporters on Wednesday. Experts at the CSA had previously told Xinhua that the use of mobile tablet technologies during the data collection procedure will immensely reduce various difficulties that may affect the census process. The new technology is said to effectively establish careful data registration system, which will eventually avoid duplication and double counting during the data collection and registration procedure, according to experts at the CSA. The East African country had been undertaking various measures towards the success of the upcoming election with 3.5 billion Ethiopian birr (about 123 million U.S. dollars) financial budget. The housing and population census, which was initially scheduled to take place in November 2017, had been postponed due to factors that are mainly attributed to security problems that were rampant across the country since the second half of 2016. The census will be conducted using five local languages namely Amharic, Afaan Oromo, Afar, Tigrigna, and Somali. Ethiopia is Africas second populous nation with an estimated 104 million population. The application of digital mobile technology is also said to be a positive impetus so as to incorporate different aspects of communities, including the use of five languages for data registration purpose unlike the previous proceeding. Xinhua
