Support to the State Department of Statistics in Organization and Implementation of the General Population Census

GEO/01/011
Total budget: USD 844,497
UNDP Sector: Development Administration – General Statistics (including demographic statistics)

Last population census was conducted in Georgia in January 1989. Since then, due to political and socio-economic changes that occurred in the country after the dissolution of Soviet Union, significant shifts occurred in the demographic structure of the population. A number of surveys and studies, including a quarterly household survey conducted by the State Department of Statistics (SDS) since the end of 1996, have tried to capture some of these changes. It is evident, however, that social, economic and fiscal policy-making have a lot to gain from census data.

The Presidential Decree # 549 issued on 31 December 2000 provided the legal framework for the Census preparation in the absence of the relevant legislation. On 12 October 2001 the Law of Georgia on Census was adopted, defining the legal grounds for preparation and conduct of the Census and processing of obtained data, regulating the relationships between the institutions of Central local self-government and government, citizens’ participation, rights and duties of enumerators, and providing guarantees for information confidentiality.

Objective:

The objective of the project is to provide technical and financial inputs for the timely conducting of the Census and dissemination of results. Through this project UNDP will provide the framework for a coordinated response of the donors’ assistance for the Census and will monitor the implementation of the Project objectives through the institutional partnership with the State Department of Statistics.

Project justification and strategy:

Since 1999, a number of attempts have been made by the State Department of Statistics to organize and conduct a census. However, all these attempts were unsuccessful mainly due to unavailability of funds from the State Budget. The funds were only allocated in the 2001 Budget and provisions were made in the draft budget of 2002. Simultaneously, despite the financial difficulties, technical and methodological work continued and the Department completed all necessary steps to conduct a census in January 2002 in accordance with the workplan approved in January 2001. The Census was implemented in two steps: Enumeration of the mountainous regions, inaccessible in January was completed in November 2002; Enumeration of the remaining part of Georgia was conducted on 17-24 January 2002 with the total of 21,500 persons involved in its implementation. Data from all districts, to be further processed, is accumulated in the Department for Statistics. Processing of the data will involve 150 encoders and 150 scanning and computer clerks. The data processing will be accomplished in 6-8 months. The project is fully funded by the grants of the Governments of Germany, the Netherlands and the UK. The funds will be allocated through the project of the Government of Georgia and managed by UNDP.

Expected outputs:

The Census findings will provide the donor community and the academia with the basic demographic and socio-economic information about Georgia. Given that this information has not been updated since 1989, publication and wide dissemination of this data will be used for policy planning and formulation, planning and allocation of central and local budgetary transfers, development of demographic policies, aid coordination, etc. In particular the results of the General Population Census will contribute to the preparation and conduct of local elections planned in 2002, and will be used extensively for Poverty Reduction and Economic Growth Programme for the analysis of demographic trends and labor force, poverty rate and depth, calculation of the GDP per capita, pension reform and reform of other social welfare systems, equitable distribution and redistribution of the country’s national resources etc.