Census 2001 Gains Momentum

Contact: Tesa St. Ange

Tuesday, May 15, 2001 - As Census Day (May 22) draws near officials of the Statistics Department are reporting smooth progress with the enumeration process. According to Director of Statistics Edwin St. Catherine, the census office is satisfied with the level of cooperation from the public so far. Enumerators have already covered close to 70% of areas in Soufriere, Choiseul, Vieux-Fort, Laborie, Micoud and Dennery.

However, St. Catherine notes that there have been some obstacles. The biggest is the difficulty of contacting residents especially in the Castries and Gros Islet areas as their work patterns mean that enumerators have to confine their operations to weekends and between five and eight pm.   The census office is also concerned that some questions may be misconceived as some respondents interpret an inquiry into whether they have a terminal illness as whether they have AIDS.   St. Catherine maintains that measures have been put in place to remedy these difficulties.

Enumerators who have completed their surveys have been reassigned to the northern enumeration districts or districts with larger households. This means that the census exercise is gaining momentum in terms of greater level of contact with householders. To ensure clarity of the census questions the statistics office has attempted to make them as unambiguous and close-ended as possible and have provided elaborate interpretations of questions on the questionnaire to aid the enumerators in explaining them to respondents where necessary.

The Statistics Department has put measures in place to assist members of the public who may have queries about the census. The census questionnaire is available on the Internet at www.stats.gov.lc and at the Statistics Office. As well, a census hotline has been established at 456-0500 for persons to verify whether questions asked of the public are on the official census questionnaire, to describe the quality of contact experienced with the enumerator and to indicate whether their household has been questioned.

It is hoped that findings from the 2001 population and housing census will provide policy makers with a most comprehensive range of social, economic and demographic indicators to formulate policies and programmes aimed at improving the welfare of St. Lucians. In addition, the population census provides indispensable data for research purposes and for business, industry, and labour. It is the source of information that channels the direction of  a ten-year development plan.

Meanwhile, representatives of OECS countries are presently meeting in St. Lucia to ensure that information collected through national censuses is not wasted but used to correct burning social and economic problems. The OECS secretariat, in collaboration with the World Bank Institute, has organised a two-week training workshop for senior public servants who will use census data for informing policy decisions. The workshop at the Rex St. Lucian runs till May 25, and will provide participants with increased skills for analysing census and survey data for formulation of social policy and poverty reduction strategies in the Caribbean.

The Statistics Department hopes to have a preliminary report on St. Lucia’s 2001 Population and Housing census by mid-July and a more comprehensive report by October 2001.

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