The UN Senior Experts’ Mission on Census completes its visit to Turkmenistan

UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund supported the second visit of the UN Mission in support of the Population and Housing Census in Turkmenistan, which took place from 16 – 20 December 2022. Turkmenistan is conducting a complete census of the population and housing stock, which is taking place from 17 to 27 December 2022 using tablet computers for data collection. The mission consisted of representatives from the United Nations Statistics Division, Statistics Division of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, UNFPA Regional Office for Eastern Europe and Central Asia and the Interstate Statistical Committee of CIS.

The purpose of the UN Mission was to find out how enumeration was going from the perspective of full compliance with international standards, namely the UN Principles and Recommendations for Population and Housing Censuses and the Recommendations of the Conference of European Statisticians for the 2020 population and housing census round. The mission had fruitful meetings with the management and core team of the State Committee on Statistics and with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

In April 2022 the same composition of the UN senior experts visited the country to get acquainted with the progress of preparations for the 2022 census and developed recommendations to ensure that the processes and results of the census comply fully with international standards. During its December visit, the mission delegates visited selected census enumeration units and communicated with the enumerators to inquire about technical and substantial details related to the field work, concluding that the field work progresses as planned. The Mission also concluded that most of the previously issued recommendations were successfully implemented by the State Statistics Committee. In particular, the government ensured that public awareness about the census was increased to stimulate active participation of the population.

The mission experts conducted a training for mass media representatives on the role of media in census communication and dissemination, which was followed by the press briefing.

“We commend the decision of the Government of Turkmenistan to conduct the population and housing census of Turkmenistan in 2022 using tablet computers, which facilitates quality assurance, enables accelerated editing and processing of collected data, and permits timely release and dissemination of preliminary and final census results. We look forward to trusted cooperation with the Government of Turkmenistan to continue to provide United Nations support for the 2022 Population and Housing Census of Turkmenistan until all the phases have been accomplished. We also take this opportunity to congratulate the Government of Turkmenistan for its commitments, invested resources and expertise in planning and conducting the population and housing census”, said Mr. Srdjan Mrkic, Head of the Demographic Statistics Section of the UN Statistics Division, Head of Mission.

“Census does not finish when data collection ends, according to the international recommendations, publishing and analyzing data is a key part of the process” highlighted Mr. Andres Vikat, Head of the Social and Demographic Statistics Unit of the Statistics Division of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe.

The Mission outlined that disseminating provisional and later final census results will significantly and positively impact the perception of the statistical capacity of Turkmenistan, placing it into the column of UN Member States that are able to generate granular statistics necessary for national policies and monitoring of the implementation of the Sustainable Development Agenda. In this connection, UNFPA will continue to provide technical advisory support to the State Statistics Committee to ensure all census operations at all stages are in line with UN principles and recommendations, collected data is of high quality and used for the national socio-economic development, and population policies.

Read about 2022 April’s visit of UN Senior Experts Mission on Census to Turkmenistan                               

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