Since independence, Uganda has had 5 censuses, the first having been in 1969 and posted a population of 9.5 million persons at the time The 2024 National Population and Housing Census is just over two months away.
Despite the census being a continuation of the decennial exercise, this year’s national census has a few differences from the previous ones. To begin with, for the first time, the Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS) is moving away from using printed questionnaires to using the Computer-Assisted Personal Interviewing (CAPI) system.
In this system, all information is directly recorded on tablet Personal Computers which also takes record of the Geographic Positioning System (GPS) coordinates to ensure that the needed data is corrected accurately. Foreigners Additionally, the 2024 national census will enumerate not only Ugandans but also foreigners who will be in the country during the time of the census.
UBOS officials explained that the census will be implemented on a Defacto basis to enable comparison with results from earlier censuses. The population as such, will be enumerated on the designated “census night” meaning that everyone who spends the census night in Uganda will be eligible for enumeration.
The census will count all people with Ugandan or foreign citizenship including foreign diplomatic personnel accredited to Uganda for as long as they spend the census night within the territory of the Republic of Uganda.
The trained enumerators will move from household to household and will interview the heads of households using the already pre designed questionnaires.
The NPHC 2024 data collection process will take a minimum of 10 days. Since independence, Uganda has had 5 censuses, the first having been in 1969 and posted a population of 9.5 million persons at the time. Subsequent censuses were held in 1980, 1991, 2002 and most recently in 2014.
The resultant population from these censuses were recorded at 12.6 million, 16.7 million, 24.1 million and 34.6 million respectively.
