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Solomon Islands Statistics Office prepares ahead for 2019 National Census

THE Solomon Islands National Statistics Office (SINSO) within the Ministry of Finance and Treasury (MoFT) is on groundwork for the major upcoming “2019 Population and Housing Census”.
With only a year away from the actual event in 2019, the SINSO is now on preparatory phases as the national event is fast approaching.
Leading up to the event proper in 2019, the SINSO have made preliminary preparation work with a UNFPA Consultant for the Census planning and budget review last month.
Also as part of the Census planning the SINSO will embark on conducting the Village Resources Survey (VRS-Village Census) and the Household listing exercise ahead of the actual event in 2019.
The VRS and Household Listing exercise is part of the preparation leading up to the national census in 2019. In fact, the VRS survey will collect information on services to the village including mapping. The household listing exercise will collect information on households GPS and the number of people per household by gender. This is the basis for Census enumeration areas (EA) demarcation.
This (VRS) is another of the many survey projects that the particular government department (SINSO) embarks on under its National Statistics Development Strategy (NSDS 2015/16 to 2035) 20 year’s road map.
Other major national projects that are also facilitated through the NSDS 2015/16 to 2035 under the leadership of the Government Statistician are;
National Agriculture Survey (ongoing).
Solomon Islands Demographic & Health Survey – Dissemination phase (ongoing activities)
Household Income and expenditure survey – Extended for National CPI Project and GDP (ongoing activities)
The National statistics Development Strategy NSDS 2015/16 to 2035 (ongoing)
Proposed quarterly Labour Force Survey (LFS) (new/ongoing).
The 2019 Population and Housing Census Preparations.

To ensure things up-and-coming, the responsible Steering Committee now get on the foundation with series of meetings and discussions with responsible government ministries and stakeholders as a lead up to the actual kick-off time of the project (VRS) this year.
In a recent meeting by the VRS Steering Committee at the NSO conference room with representatives from the Provincial Government and Institutional Strengthening (MPGIS) and the Ministry of Lands, Housing and Survey (MLHS) held discussions on the definition of a “Village”, questionnaires that will be used during the survey, the project budget which will include training of enumerators and implementation of the project (VRS).
A representative from the Ministry of Lands (MLHS) admitted at the meeting that the Ministry is still without and is yet to have a gazetted village names/listings for the whole country (Solomon Islands).
Government Statistician, Douglas Kimi said this VRS project will be a benchmark for the official/gazetted village names in the country.
He said once the survey (VRS) is conducted and successfully accomplished it will provide avenues to look at pathways to gazette village names.
Mr Kimi said to ensure this is achieved, the National Statistics Office will make sure it continues to work closely with important stakeholders and the government ministries like the Ministry of Provincial Government and Institutional Strengthening (MPGIS) and the Ministry of Lands, Housing and Survey (MLHS).
Training for VRS field enumerators will commence soon this month (October). The training will be facilitated by NSO staffs.
The NSO is also calling on development partners and donors to support the 2019 Census in terms of funding and technical assistance.

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