Population and Housing Census 2003

A population census is defined as the total process of collecting, compiling, evaluating, analyzing and publishing or otherwise disseminating demographic, economic and social data pertaining, at a specified time, to all persons in a country or in a well-delimited part of the country. A housing census is the total process of collecting, compiling, evaluating, analyzing and publishing or otherwise disseminating statistical data pertaining at a specified time, to all living quarters and occupants thereof in a country or in a well-delimited part of a country.

The 2003 Population and Housing Census of The Gambia was in accordance with these definitions. Further, it contained all the essential features of a census, namely individual enumeration, universality within the country and simultaneity.

Objectives of the Census
The objectives of the Census are to count all the people in the country and to provide the Government with their number in each Local Government Area and District, by age, sex and several other characteristics. These figures are required for various aspects of economic and development planning. The ultimate aim of such planning is to provide a better way of life for the people of The Gambia, and to conquer what have been called the Five Giants: Disease, Ignorance, Squalor, Idleness and Want.

Planning for education obviously requires a knowledge of the number of children of school age who are likely to require schooling at various levels. The Government cannot know where to build the necessary schools or how many school teachers must be trained unless it knows where the need is great in terms of the number of children who should be going to school.
1.5 Housing is a major problem, particularly in urban areas where people are often living in terribly crowded conditions. If new houses are to be built in order to relieve this overcrowding, the Government must know the number of people living in these conditions who will be requiring such houses.

The Government wishes to improve and extend the medical services of the country so as to eliminate diseases and to reduce the number of children dying in infancy and early childhood. But if medical services are to be planned properly, the Government must know the number of people involved, the number of children being born and the rate at which they are dying.

For all these purposes, it is not enough just to know how many people there are at the time of the Census because figures of this sort get out-of-date very quickly. We must know also how fast the population is increasing, so that we can tell the Government how many people there will be, not only this year but also next year, in five years, in ten years time, etc. We therefore wish to obtain information not only of people now living, but also of the number of children being born and the number of children who have died.

Since the last Census there might have been changes in the structure of the population. The 2003 Census will thus help us up-date the Census data thereby ascertaining the specific changes in the structure of the population since 1993.