Results Show There Are More Males (50.4%) In Liberia Than Females ((49.6%)
PHOTO: LISGIS and other officials including international partners during the ceremony to announce the results
By Esau J. Farr, esaufarr1980@gmail.com
At long last, the Liberia Institute for Statistics and Geo-Information Services (LIGIS) today, Wednesday, February 22, 2023 released the provisional results of the 2022 Liberia National Housing and Population Census (LNHPC).
The 2022 Census started on a bad footing marred by serious administrative and logistical hitches compounded by a wave of protests and disenchantment expressed by staff recruited for the exercise over pay and conditions of service. In some instances, many residents in various parts of the country including the capital, Monrovia complained of not being counted. Other census experts, including a member of the Census committee, Nimba County Representative Larry Youngquoi criticized the implementation of the exercise saying that there was many professional flaws in the exercise.
But officials conducting the exercise and international partners said initial lapses were taken care off and that the process was on course and being done rightly and professionally.
According to the results from the statistics house, Liberia’s population now stands at five million, two hundred forty-eight thousand, six hundred twenty-one (5,248,621) people.
Of the total number, male accounts for 50.4%, while female took a slightly low figure short of the male at 49.6%. This means that the total males in Liberia for now is 2,644,450 and the females are now 2,604,171. This is contrary to earlier and popular claims being made by Liberians in other quarters that female constitutes 50 or more percent of the overall population of Liberia.
Releasing the provisional results at the Monrovia City Hall Wednesday, February 22, 2023, the Acting head of LISGIS, Lawrence George said he was happy to be a part of history making to help produce Liberia’s first complete digital Census.
The Acting Director General of LISGIS presenting the overview and highlights of the exercise said that the process used state-of-the-art geo-spatial, census monitoring dashboard and Computer Aided Personal Interview (CAPI) technology in all aspects of its implementation.
Mr. George disclosed that Liberia’s newest population which now stands at 5.2 million has a growth rate of 3.0 with an average household size of 4.4 which places Liberia at middle position of household average size in West Africa. Population by Counties Unsurprisingly though, Montserrado County who hosts all the major government ministries and seat of the President as well as the political and biggest commercial city of the country took the lion share of one million, nine hundred-twenty thousand, nine hundred and fourteen (1,920,914) people while Nimba and Bong Counties maintained their respective places of second and third respectively.
The just-ended Census puts Nimba’s newest population at six hundred twenty one thousand, eight hundred and forty-one (621,841) people while the third most populated county, Bong, shows that the population of the county is four hundred six seven thousand, five hundred and two (467,502) people in the central Liberian county.
The rest are in their respective orders of their standings as they follow the format of Monsterrado, Nimba and Bong Counties. Lofa takes 4th place at 367,376, Margibi in 5th position with 304,946 people, Grand Bassa is sixth with the population of 293,557 persons. Others are, Grand Gedeh-216,692, Grand Cape Mount, 178,798 people, Maryland stands at 172, 202 and Sinoe follows in the same order with the population of 150,358. The rest are, Bomi County follows Sinoe in eleventh place with a population of 133,668; River Gee is 124, 653, Grand Kru is now 109, 342 people according to the report, while Gbarpolu and River Cess counties end the chart in 14th and 15th places respectively. Gbarpolu now has 95, 995 people and River Cess is 90, 777 people as its newest population.
According to the Acting LISGIS boss, the completeness of the 2022 LNPHC is ranked at 97 percent is an internationally acceptable achievement. Making remarks at the ceremony, all partners of the Government of Liberia (GoL) locally and internationally hailed the government for the exercise and praised government of Liberia for what they considered as political will and resilience in ensuring that the process was done despite the huddles associated with it before and during the process.
Most of the speakers who spoke at the census results announcement ceremony lavished praises on Vice President, Jewel Howard-Taylor who according to them left her office to intervene at different times and aspects.
VP Taylor is said to have taken on to the radio to calm down growing tensions among hired LISGIS contractors over unpaid or delayed compensations before and during the process.
The Crusaders for Peace and all stakeholders as well as the people of Liberia I general were praised and appreciated for the success of the exercise, noting that it could not have been possible without their respective contributions.