This archive report was first published on 8 July 2019.
On August 24th and 25th, Kenya will embark on its national census, marking a significant shift towards a paperless process. The Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) has announced plans to utilize mobile technology to streamline the exercise.
According to KNBS Director General Zachary Mwangi, devices will be distributed to all 47 counties starting from July 12th. This move aims to accelerate the enumeration process, as real-time data will be sent to the central server from the outset.
The census will be conducted in three phases: pre-enumeration, enumeration, and post-enumeration. To facilitate this process, 2,700 ICT supervisors, 27,000 content supervisors, and 135,000 enumerators will be recruited.
Training for these personnel is scheduled to begin on July 15th, 2019, and will be completed by August 21st, 2019. Moi University and the Jomo Kenya University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT) will assemble 64,700 data-capture devices at a cost of Ksh 15,000 each.
Notably, the census will also capture agricultural activities, a component that was not included in the 2009 census. As Mwangi stated, "In the previous census we did not collect information on agriculture, but this year we have a whole module on agriculture."
The theme for the census is "Counting our people for sustainable development and devolution of services."
