Sierra Leone Population and Housing 2015 Census Enumeration update

The Sierra Leone Population and Housing Census enumeration was officially conducted between the 5th and 18th December 2015.

Enumeration took place in all parts of the country and targeted all persons that spent the census night of 4/5th December 2015 including household populations, floating population groups; (travellers at airports and other border crossing points) homeless and foreigners including members of Consular and diplomatic missions and their dependants. The enumeration also targeted inmates in correctional centres, police cells, hospitals etc.

12, 856 enumerators, 2,538, Supervisors, and 240 Field Officers were deployed across the country to collect household population data while 151 additional enumerators were recruited and trained to capture data on special population groups.

31 technical coordinators were fielded in to assist the district census management teams to provide oversight for both training of enumerators and actual data collection. The exercise was also closely monitored by 18 international monitors, the Census Technical Committee and Statistics Sierra Leone Council.

The expansion of Enumeration Areas (EAs) both in terms of households and structures especially in the Western Area posed some challenges to enumerators who struggled to enumerate in these expanded EAs or new settlements within the two weeks period of enumeration. To overcome this challenge, 20 Assistant Technical Coordinators were recruited to assist in the supervision of data collection in some parts of the Western Area and additional enumerators earlier trained and maintained as a reserve force were deployed to help in the enumeration of these expanded and new EAs.

Mobile hotlines were introduced for the public to inform Statistics Sierra Leone about places not enumerated and these hotlines were very effective in identifying households that have not been enumerated.

Field work has been completed and the mopping–up exercise has been completed. Retrieval of census materials from various parts of the country has commenced.

The 2015 Sierra Leone Population and Housing Census enumeration was considered by Statistics Sierra Leone as overwhelmingly credible and we are of the opinion that 99% of the population was enumerated by the official end date of 18th December 2015.

The report of the international monitors indicated that the enumeration process was “credible and generally good.” The teething problems encountered during the period are common with censuses in Africa and will not affect the overall count.

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