Even today, no one knows how
Posted: Sun Feb 09, 2025 5:24 am
The risks are real in a country where clashes are ongoing and more than 240,000 people live as internally displaced people (IDPs). But there are also big risks inherent in not holding a count; a reliable population census is an essential tool of good governance. A weak information base makes for poor, ineffective and unaccountable government unable to identify people’s needs or deliver basic services, which in itself shortens lives.
Perhaps most crucially, knowing where the citizens live is vital for a country’s disaster preparedness and resilience. many people in Myanmar were killed by Cyclone Nargis france rcs data in 2008 (the estimates vary from 84,500 to over 130,000). The Category 4 storm made landfall on the densely populated but un-enumerated and badly mapped Ayeyarwady delta. Villages and settlements disappeared without trace or record of existence, leaving rescue and relief efforts – once they were allowed to access the region – without the basic information needed to carry out their mission. In contrast, the relief efforts following this year’s extensive monsoon flooding are being informed by population density maps produced from the census data.
flood_myanmar
Political timing
Myanmar went to the polls on Sunday, with a new president due to be appointed in spring 2016. International practice is that a census and an election should be separated by at least 12 months so postponing the 2014 census would have meant no census at all until 2017 at best. And, while the census returns were not used for the election register, running the census in 2014 has meant the data can tell us whether or not the voter lists are reasonably accurate and the constituency boundaries equitable.
Perhaps most crucially, knowing where the citizens live is vital for a country’s disaster preparedness and resilience. many people in Myanmar were killed by Cyclone Nargis france rcs data in 2008 (the estimates vary from 84,500 to over 130,000). The Category 4 storm made landfall on the densely populated but un-enumerated and badly mapped Ayeyarwady delta. Villages and settlements disappeared without trace or record of existence, leaving rescue and relief efforts – once they were allowed to access the region – without the basic information needed to carry out their mission. In contrast, the relief efforts following this year’s extensive monsoon flooding are being informed by population density maps produced from the census data.
flood_myanmar
Political timing
Myanmar went to the polls on Sunday, with a new president due to be appointed in spring 2016. International practice is that a census and an election should be separated by at least 12 months so postponing the 2014 census would have meant no census at all until 2017 at best. And, while the census returns were not used for the election register, running the census in 2014 has meant the data can tell us whether or not the voter lists are reasonably accurate and the constituency boundaries equitable.