Chamwe Kaira
Namibia Statistics Agency projects that the country’s population may stand at 2.6 million people at the end of the 2023 Population and Housing Census. If the project turns out to be accurate, that will mean the population would have grown by half a million since the last census in 2011, which stood at 2.1 million.
Digging into history, using the figures provided by the NSA, the country’s population stood at 228 916 in 1921. The next census in 1936, saw the population increase to 320 457. Ten years later in 1946, the population stood at 362 464.
The subsequent counts saw the population standing at 439 081in 1951, 761 010 in 1970 and 1,033,196 in 1981.
The current census is the forth since independence in 1990. The 1991 census saw the population standing at 1.4 million, while the 2001 census recorded the population at 1.8 million.
The NSA stated that in 1991 and 2001 census, the Pen and Paper Personal Interview (PAPI) were used and data were later captured onto the computers.
In 2011, Pen and Paper Personal Interview (PAPI) were used and the questionnaire was scanned using character recognition capability.
The current census is technologically advanced, adopting the Computer Assisted Personal interview using tablets.
“This will ensure efficient data collection, data management, and data processing for the early release of results. Provision of advanced data quality assurance procedures, including the use of real-time data quality monitoring and enumeration tracking dashboard for completeness and accurate data,” the Agency said in to response to questions by Observer Money.
At independence, the responsibility for producing and coordinating official statistics rested with the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) which was a department under the National Planning Commission.
The NSA was established in 2012, and the current census is the first to be done by the NSA.
The NSA has said the census holds significant importance for the Namibian economy due to its integral role in economic planning. Economic planning encompasses resource management and effective utilisation, making the data from this census crucial for informed decision-making in these areas.
