IBGE holds this week the “2010 Population Census: Assessment of Field Work and International Seminar ...

IBGE holds this week the “2010 Population Census: Assessment of Field Work and International Seminar on New Technologies for Population Censuses”. The event aims at evaluating technology used for data collection at the 2010 Census and exchanging methodological experiences in the next two days. Representatives of national institutes of statistics and international organizations of 20 countries will participate. The opening of the seminar will count on the presence of IBGE’s president Eduardo Pereira Nunes and takes place this Wednesday (9/29) at 9 a.m., at Leme Othon Palace Hotel (Avenida Atlântica, 656 – Leme – Rio de Janeiro).

The seminar has representatives from Angola, Argentina, Australia, Cape Verde, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, the United States, Haiti, Jamaica, Morocco, Mexico, Mozambique, Paraguay, Peru, Dominican Republic, São Tomé and Príncipe, Uruguay and Venezuela, besides Brazil. Last Tuesday (9/28), they conducted a field work visiting collection units in Rio de Janeiro. During the planning for the 2010 Census, IBGE counted on the participation of representatives of institutes of statistics of several works and international organizations, which followed several phases of the work and made observations for the development of the tasks.

Technology used by the Census makes data processing agile

The 2010 Census is the 12^th carried out in Brazil and the first totally computerized. In order to gather information, IBGE uses 220 thousand Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs). They are electronic data collectors that replace printed questionnaires, allowing information processing to be more agile. Data are encrypted to ensure safety and secrecy. Each enumerator periodically takes his PDA to one of the 7 thousand collection units to transmit data. He connects his device to a notebook established at the place, by means of a USB, and transmits information. The responsible by the collection unit gathers the data and transmits them to the Central Processing System of IBGE. Transmission is encrypted and made via the internet, using a broad band connection, 2G/3G modems or even satellites, by means of fixed or mobile antennas. Residents also have the option to provide information by means of the internet. For such, they first receive the visit by an enumerator who provides a sealed envelope with codes for access to the Census questionnaire in the site. Society may follow population and households enumerated in each of the 5,565 municipalities of the country at the link www.censo2010.ibge.gov.br/resultados.php, which is daily updated. The first definitive results of the total enumerated population will be known on November 27.

Almost half of the world population is being enumerated in 2010

Between 2006 and 2014, almost all (93%) of the 236 countries mentioned by the UN in its site (http://unstats.un.org/unsd/demographic/sources/census/censusdates.htm) will take population censuses. In 137 of them, where around 80% of the world population live, the Census takes place in 2010 or 2011. Besides Brazil, other 67 countries are conducting censuses in 2010. Among them are some neighbors of the Americas, such as the United States, Mexico, Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, Panama, Argentina, Venezuela, and Bolivia.; Asian countries like China, Indonesia, Pakistan, Japan, Philippines, Thailand and South Korea; besides Russia, Switzerland, Finland, Cape Verde, Côte d’Ivoire, Zambia and Papua New Guinea, among others. Considering UN population information on these 68 counties, almost half (46.8%) of the world population must be enumerated in 2010. In 2011, when censuses will take place in other 69 countries, among those almost all from Europe, another third (32.9%) of the world population will be enumerated.