The United Nations Population Fund or UNFPA has distanced itself from the opinions expressed in the ongoing series of audio releases in the media attributed to one of its former staff, Mr. Ibrahim M. Sesay, as Alfred Kollie reports.
According to a release, Sesay’s tenure as Chief Technical Adviser for the National Population and Housing Census with UNFPA ended on 26 August 2022.
Before becoming Chief Technical Adviser for the Census in August 2021, Mr. Sesay served as Technical Data Specialist for Reproductive Health Commodity Security also serving as Census Operations Manager during the 2008 National Population and Housing Census.
UNFPA said in a press release that has not verified that the voice in the audio circulating in the local media is that of the former Chief Technical Adviser for the Census.
The agency believes the release of such allegations at a time when frantic efforts by many collaborating partners are being made to ensure the successful count of the population, is counterproductive.
Population and housing census is among the most complex and massive peacetime exercises a nation can undertake which requires careful planning, resourcing, and implementation – from mapping an entire country, mobilizing and training large numbers of enumerators, and conducting major public awareness campaigns to canvassing all households, carefully monitoring census activities, and analyzing, disseminating, and using the resulting data.
A census involves the complete enumeration of the population in a country, territory, or area and should be conducted at least once every ten years. It generates a wealth of data, including numbers of people, their spatial distribution, age, and sex structure, as well as their living conditions and other vital socioeconomic characteristics.
These data are critical for good governance, policy formulation, development planning, crisis prevention, mitigation and response, social welfare programmes, and business market analyses, among others.
UNFPA provides technical and financial support to ensure that censuses are of high quality, uphold international principles and standards, and produce widely disseminated and utilized data for development.
Since the signing of the National Population and Housing Census Project Document on 08 October 2019, UNFPA has been working closely with the Government of Liberia through the Liberia Institute of Statistics and GeoInformation Services or LISGIS to ensure that the census is implemented following international standards and practices; especially regarding the use of technology to improve data quality, timeliness, and accessibility.