For Immediate Release
Kabul, Afghanistan – The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) announced it will contribute $15 million to the Afghan Government to support completion of a landmark household and population survey. Once complete, the survey will, for the first time in more than 35 years, provide Afghanistan and donors with reliable economic and demographic data, which can be used for future planning.
The Afghanistan Central Statistics Organization manages the $74-million Socio-Demographic and Economic Survey jointly with the United Nations Population Fund, which is helping to finance the study. Other donors include the Japanese and Danish governments and the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development.
The survey will count people and households in most villages and urban areas in every province of Afghanistan. The data will be reliable down to the district level, including limited village-level data.
“This kind of data is vital to any developing nation,” said USAID Mission Director William Hammink. “It will give the Afghan government the data needed to conduct elections, to do immunization campaigns, formulate housing policy, provide humanitarian assistance, design emergency preparedness plans and other national activities. It will provide enough accurate provincial and district-level data so that we will have a level of confidence that the data accurately reflects the population in general.”
Provincial surveys have already occurred in Bayman, Ghor, Daikondi, Parwan Kapisa, Kabul and Samangan. The rest of the provinces are expected to be surveyed through 2018,
The last household and population census in Afghanistan was conducted in 1979 and covered only two-thirds of the country. The Afghan government estimates the population at 30 million, but because of security conditions, logistical and other difficulties, the actual number isn’t known.
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