Kenya National Bureau of Statistics is set to acquire 165,000 mobile devices to conduct the upcoming population census. According to Treasury CS Henry Rotich, the use of technology will enhance the quality of data.
He adds, “It has inbuilt checks, correction of inconsistent responses and cross-validation with other records.”
The exercise will be paperless where enumerators will use mobile phones which will have data collection applications to transmit the data to a central server. This method of data acquisition is expected to eliminate mistakes and reduce the time for the release of results to about three months.
“This information will enable the government to plan its spending based on socio-economic and demographic status. The census will provide the much needed comprehensive data at the county and lower levels to inform development planning and programming to facilitate quality service delivery to citizens.”
The Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) said the census, whose budget stands at Sh18.5 billion, will require 170,000 enumerators, 27,000 supervisors and 2,700 ICT supervisors.
This will be the eight census in Kenya’s history and the first to be done digitally. The last census conducted in 2009 puts Kenya’s population at 38,610,097.
