In September 2022, the population and housing census took place in Maldives. The largest enumeration exercise reaching every single person, Maldivian nationals and foreigners, living in Maldives on the 13th of September 2022. Unlike in the previous censuses, this time UNFPA supported the enumeration through the Computer Assisted Personal Interview (CAPI) system with tablets - providing seamless data collection and entry in real time. This year, for the first time disability questions were included to establish both physical and cognitive disabilities prevalent in the country.
UNFPA in the Maldives has been a long-standing and critical partner for the Maldives Bureau of Statistics (MBS) for the censuses for 45 years since the modern census conducted in 1977. UNFPA has been instrumental in creating awareness and understanding, providing technical support to the institution in the analysis of data and in the subsequent advocacy work; both with the public and policy makers. The preparation for the CAPI census has been on-going for more than two years with digitising the Geographic Information System (GIS) and developing and managing the electronic cloud system to safely manage the census information. This will enable mapping of the data in visual form for the first time.
As a national exercise, individuals and institutions from the whole country contributed to the census enumeration. Key politicians including the President and First Lady closely monitored the process giving awareness into the importance of participating in the national effort.
Majority of the enumerators were young people. “This was a good opportunity to get out of my comfort zone and give back to the community”, acclaims Shara, a recent med-school graduate and one of the 2000 mostly women enumerators working for MBS in Male’ city.
For 2022, in addition to counting the resident foreign population, women’s economic activities are also counted within the economic census being conducted thoroughly in the Maldives for the first time. This is important in providing critical data to shape policies to empower women in the long run. The Census week from 13-27 September was visible throughout the country with flags, banners and posters to encourage public support.
The Census is key to accelerate our efforts in achieving the SDG agenda and the three transformative results of Zero unmet need for planning, Zero maternal deaths and Zero gender based violence - 98 out of 230 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) indicators will be updated from the Census data base. This valuable information will be key to report on the next Voluntary National Report on SDG.
As Zaaya further states “I feel it’s essential for young girls especially, to participate in things that build character, confidence and just help them grow in general, I feel that being part of census really did those things for me” UNFPA looks forward to the announcement of the Census results which will be later in the year.
