BUJUMBURA December 15th (ABP) – The president of the Central Census Bureau (BCR) Nicolas Ndayishimiye, released, Wednesday, December 13, 2023, a statement to inform the Burundians on the activities of census mapping which begins on Thursday, on December 14, 2023 and ending on May 14, 2024.
According to the president of the BCR, the cartographers will travel through all the neighborhoods and hills of Burundi to collect cartographic information which will be used in the success of the main enumeration, as part of the General Census of Population, Housing, of Agriculture and Livestock which will begin in 2024. He specified that the information that we will collect is related to the number of households located in each locality. We will also take the administrative boundaries of the hills and neighborhoods.
Other information that we will collect is that relating to the infrastructure supporting the development of those localities, namely schools, health facilities, hotels, developed water sources, storage sheds.
At the household level, they will take information relating to the number of households, the men and women who live in the household and the people who are, as of today, 16 years and over, because that information will be used by the Independent National Electoral Commission (CENI) to prepare for the next elections in 2025. Activities start at Bujumbura town hall for 8 days, then the teams will enter the country.
He also took that opportunity to point out that it will be for the first time that Burundi has a geo-referenced cartographic base of infrastructure and households.
Regarding financial resources, he indicated that the government of Burundi has already made 46 billion Fbu available to the BCR for logistics and purchase of equipment. With the remaining financial resources, the BCR hopes that the mapping will be carried out without any problems. He did not fail to point out that there are partners who have already made promises of support for the General Census of Population, Housing, Agriculture and Livestock, citing the ADB, FAO, UNFPA, World Bank, FIGA, and others.
As the census mapping operation is obligatory and of national sovereignty, everyone must agree to be counted by providing reliable information because it is from the census data that we will have a lot of information which will be used in planning for an emerging Burundi in 2040 and a developed one in 2060.
The BCR chairman asked the Burundian population to welcome the cartographers sent by the BCR who will be identified by one of the t-shirts they will wear and badges bearing the census logo. The local administration is invited to help the BCR by mobilizing the people, so that the latter responds satisfactorily to that census. It is the mapping agents who will make the trips to the households and not the other way around, specified Nicolas Ndayishimiye.