Experiences from census taking in the Western Balkan countries (and Turkey) 2011 Census round 24 february 2012 Pieter Everaers Eurostat Resources, Governance of the ESS, and international Cooperation

Structure of the presentation  Why is the census so important for these countries … and why is it so challenging to have a good census realised?  Some statistics describing these countries  Civil society, EU membership prospects and state capacity  International support and census monitoring  Experiences on Census taking; country by country  Overview of relevance, reliability and credibility of the census  Again role of civil society, state capacity and EU membership prospects 2

The urgent need for good population statistics….  No census since many years  Huge population changes due to periods of war and uncertainty  New countries with new institutional structures with strong links between population numbers and distribution of financial resources  Potential EU membership and EU and global obligations  Economic developments to be based on sound statistics  Setting up a sound statistical system, the census as a base for many other statistics 3

… in a very challenging environment  Ethnic, religious, language and nationality diversity between but more important also within the countries  The problem of migration and refugees; place of usual residence, diaspora  State institutions weak or in early stages of development  (Latent) regional and sub-regional conflicts  The link between the population census and ‘agreements’ on local and national government powers, resources, schools, language etc. (statistics as part of politics)  Weak (young) statistical offices, old structures, lack of expertise 4

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Ethnic and religious diversity (civil society)  Some very young countries, no functioning social structures  Old and new structures conflicting or cooperating  Diversity of population groups, diaspora, huge reliance on remittances  Low trust in society in general  Large numbers of people to reside outside the country  Relatively poor population especially in rural areas  Very specific population groups (Roma) 7

EU membership  Candidate and pre candidates members  Schumann principle, sharing to increase wealth and well being  Membership based on contributions and subsidies, funds based on sound and harmonised statistics  Acquis communautaire (and on statistics) 8

Organisation of the government (state capacity)  Governmental structures in development/under (re-)construction  Statistical offices from old Yugoslavian system to modern (independent) statistical offices  Statistical law and law on census to be developed  Census experience in the statistical office very limited, also financial resources limited  In some countries relatively low trust in government and statistics (confidentiality problems)  Many other priorities (energy, highways, etc) other than statistics 9

The organisation of monitoring  On explicit request or based on strong advise  Monitoring to steer support or to guarantee credibility  Via light peer reviews or large international monitoring operations  Concentrated on a specific element or all over the process  EU driven or with wide international support  With a political component or purely technical  Five technical coordination meetings (sharing experiences and knowledge) 11

Situation and characteristics of census per country: Croatia  Traditional face to face, OCR  September 2011, 4 weeks 1-31 Oktober  enumerators, budget 21 million, no international donors, per capita 5.4 Euro  Communication and outreach 2.2 %  Questions on language and ethnicity, no real problems  No big problems in the field and analysis, some unrest about total costs  No monitoring  Successfully finished, consolidation of NSI position 13

Situation and characteristics of census per country: Montenegro  Traditional face to face, manual data entry  31 of March 2011, 2 weeks  3900 enumerators, budget 3.2 million, no international funding, per capita 5.1 Euro  Communication and outreach, 3.0%  Questions on ethnicity etc, problems but via campaigns reasonably solved, some issues on the final results  Some problems on language issues  Light monitoring focused on building confidence and emphasis on communication. High political commitment  Successfully finished, strongly contributed to strengthen statistics 14

Situation and characteristics of census per country: Serbia  Traditional face to face, OCR  30 september 2011, 2 weeks 1-14 Oktober  enumenrators, 25 million, donors from EU, 3.4 Euro per capita  Communication and outreach 1.0 %  Questions on ethnicity etc, no real problems  Severe funding problems leading to delay  Boycott, non response in municipalities with Albanian population  International support but no monitoring  Successfully finished 15

Situation and characteristics of census per country: Albania  Traditional face to face, OCR  30 september 2011, 4 weeks 1-31 oktober  enumerators, 17 million Euro, several donors, 5.4 Euro per capita  Communication and outreach 3.5 %  Questions on religion in Greek dominated areas problematic, some strong political interventions  Problems with Greek minority  6 months delay because of late preparation census law  International support and consultancy/monitoring, coaching on key functions  Finally, successfully finished, good impact on statistical office 16

Situation and characteristics of census per country: Kosovo (under UNSCR 1244/99)  Traditional face to face, manual data entry  31 March 2011, 2 weeks in april but extended with one week  5000 enumerators, 11.7 million, high financial international support, 5.0 Euro per capity  Communication and outreach 9.0%  Complex discussion on ethnicity and language, diaspora how to be measured?  6 years of international political and technical support and monitoring, mainly technical and political, large observation operation,  Boycott/non participation in Northern municipalities and some regions  Large impact on the statistical office, strong foundation now of official statistics in society 17

Situation and characteristics of census per country: former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (fYRoM)  Traditional face to face, OCR  enumerators, in teams from different population groups, final costs not yet known, own state budget, costs per capita not known  Planned 1 oktober, for three weeks  Communication and outreach costs relatively low  Very complex ethnic situation (relation to Ohcrid agreement) 18

Situation and characteristics of census per country: former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (fYRoM)  Ctd  Light monitoring mainly on the level of communication and outreach and political level  First delayed for 6 months, than Census operation stopped after one week, ethnic problems and communication problems in enumeration teams  Complex census law, state census committee with operational powers.  Strong political interference via State Census Commission  Unclear how to go ahead, (decouple from Ohcrid agreement) 19

Situation and characteristics of census per country: Bosnia Herzegovina  Planned spring 2013, census law only very recently adopted  Traditional face to face  Complex ethnic situation, diaspora and link to powers (Dayton agreement)  International monitoring foreseen, technical and political, observation in the field 20

Situation and characteristics of census per country: Turkey  Register based census supplemented with surveys  Oktober 2011  No problems known 22

Overview of results (1) Relevance  Huge relevance of statistics confirmed for all these countries  Many very important outcomes (population lower than expected, less urbanisation, education and employment data, links to the agricultural census, etc)  Strong impact on position of statistics in society and on expertise and quality of the statistical office  Apparently no large return of people living in diaspora, could lead to an acceptance of the status quo in several countries. 23

Overview of results (2) Reliability  Positive results in Croatia, Albania, Montenegro, Serbia,  Reliable for a part of the country in Kosovo (norther municipalities not to be included)  Interviews and processing in general done in a very satisfactory manner  However, in several countries place of usual residence unclear how dealt with and how processed  Unclear if parts of diaspora are included 24

Overview of results (3) Monitoring and credibility  Time consuming and relatively high costs operations in Kosovo and expected Bosnia Herzegovina  Instrument of light monitoring worked well in Montenegro, not in fYRoM  Main positive outcomes : Results are widely accepted and Strengthening statistical office and trust in statistics  Main negative outcome : Reliance on external support only temporarely and relative large emphasis on only one project 25

Civil society, State capacity and EU membership  Mature civil society needed, social capital is an important precondition, but clearly countries their own responsibility  State capacity is essential, can be built up and (internationally) supported in its development  EU membership creates pre conditions on the state environment but is not a sufficient objective to assure a good and successful census 26

27 Thank you

The Western Balkan countries and Turkey Cyprus

Overview of the census as a data collection process All persons in BiH + all Bosnians abroad 2.Enumerated population, present or absent 3. Total resident population of BiH

Experiences from census taking in the Western Balkan countries (and Turkey) 2011 Census round february 2012 Pieter Everaers Eurostat Resources, Governance of the ESS, and international Cooperation

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