By Edzorna Francis Mensah
The Ghana Statistical Service is set to release provisional results for the 2021 Population and Housing Census (PHC) on Wednesday, September 22, 2021.
Government Statistician, Professor Samuel Kobina Anim, announced this to journalists in Accra, when he launched the Ghana 2021 Population and Housing Census product release Calendar.
“The release calendar indicates that the preliminary report which presents the provisional results will be made available on Wednesday, 22nd September 2021 for public consumption’’, he indicated.
This means that for the first time ever, the provisional results are to be released within 3 months of the Census Night (27th June 2021).
The 2021 PHC is the nation’s first fully digital census utilizing technology to enhance census implementation and data quality.
According to the Government Statistician, “the use of technology for data capture and real-time data quality monitoring” has facilitated faster data processing and results release.
The release calendar features six (6) different types of publications and eight (8) interactive and user-friendly products to be released within the next 2 years to meet the diverse needs of data users.
Professor Samuel Kobina Anim said, “the publications are the Preliminary Report, Residential Proximity to Essential Services Report, General Report, Thematic Reports, Analytical Reports, and the Census Atlas’’.
‘’The other products are policy briefs, interactive census results dashboard, infographics, dissemination seminars, webinars for data users, videos, fact sheets, and 1% Public Use Microdata Sample”, he said.
The purpose of releasing the calendar ahead of the product release is to provide information to stakeholders and data users on when data products from the Census would be made available to the public to promote extensive usage of the data.
The 2021 PHC would provide updated demographic, socio-economic, and housing data for research, policy, and planning over the next decade.