OECS Member States are improving the comparability of population data

This was made possible with funds from the UNFPA along with technical guidance available from Statistics Canada under the Project for Advancement of Statistics in the Caribbean (PRASC) to produce an OECS PHC Toolkit. The Toolkit was demonstrated at a Joint Meeting of the OECS Commission and ECCB with the National Statistics Offices (NSOs) held on 23 and 24 June. All OECS Member States are collaborating on the harmonised approach for the PHC so that country comparable data can be produced and disseminated, and the Toolkit is among several resources to facilitate this requirement.

The OECS PHC Toolkit is an assortment of guidelines, templates, best practices for the three census stages: from pre-census planning and advocacy to dissemination of census results. It complements the support (technical, financial and advisory) provided to the Member States for the PHC and considered as the “go-to” resource for the Member States as they undertake census implementation.  The Toolkit is neither intended to void other important and indispensable aspects of census preparation and exercises such as training, consultation, or expert assistance, nor to replace international guidelines, handbooks, and recommendations.

Though the target users are the NSOs, the Toolkit is a learning resource and anyone who wants to better understand population censuses – how they are conducted; how the data are processed? what is the data used for? – can navigate the page and read the documents, FAQs and Glossary. Students, journalists and non-statisticians will find the Toolkit useful and informative.

The OECS PHC Toolkit is one of several products of the OECS Commission’s programme of support for the 2020 round of the population and housing census; and one which is covered in the Memorandum of Understanding between UNFPA and OECS Commission. The OECS Member States that will be conducting their PHC in 2021 are Grenada, Dominica and St. Kitts and Nevis.  The other six countries have tentatively scheduled their census for mid to late 2022.  Reduced fiscal funds and the requirement to comply with COVID-19 physical distancing protocols have caused the Member States to redate their census from its original date of May 2020.

The Toolkit contributes to the availability of and access to social data and is aligned to the objectives of the Strategic Priority 3: Join the Data Revolution of the OECS Regional Strategy for Development in Statistics (RSDS). Launched in 2017, the OECS RSDS is the region’s statistical development master plan for the advancement of data and official statistics.