Mozambique’s National Statistics Institute, INE, will undertake a census of the entire country during the first two weeks of August this year, to provide detailed information on a population that it currently estimates at over 27 million people.

The census will be conducted by around 100,000 people – enumerators, mobilizers, and supervisors – doing door-to-door surveys to collect data from all of Mozambique’s households.

The census is carried out every 10 years, and aims not just to count the population but to learn about how Mozambicans live. Data gathered by census workers will include citizens’ age, sex, relationship status, languages spoken, places of residence, and a range of indicators of economic status.

The census will provide public and private sector decision-makers with a detailed population profile to help guide the provision of services.

Accomplishing this census requires the support of international development partners including Norway, Italian Cooperation, the United Kingdom through development agency DFID, and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), channelling support through a Trust Fund, which will cover goods, logistics, training and communication, in close coordination with the INE. In addition, the World Bank, Sweden, India and UNICEF have also provided support to the operation – of which roughly $25 million was approved by the World Bank earlier this month.

The 2017 census will also mark the first time that INE, as the entity responsible for the whole process, uses digital technology to process the data.

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