Behind the Numbers: The PRB blog on population, health, and the environment

by Jason Bremner, program director, Population, Health, and Environment 

As our vehicle drove along rural Ethiopian roads packed with children going to school, farmers headed to market, and animals headed for pastures, it was hard not to think about population, numbers, and types of people. My mind kept returning to the challenges of getting health and human services to densely populated rural areas of Ethiopia, the second largest country in Africa, where nearly 85% of the population live in rural areas. Meeting such a challenge should depend on reliable data on who and where people lived and what services they need, shouldn’t it?

Well demographically speaking, it was an exciting and controversial time to be in Ethiopia. We heard several reports of the imminent release of the census data after waiting nearly 18 months since the 2007 census was conducted. The last Ethiopian national census was conducted well over a decade ago, in 1994, and results of the most recent count are highly anticipated among regional, national, and international organizations.

Photo used under Creative Commons from babasteve

Many aspects of the census, including population size, regional distribution, urban/rural composition, ethnic composition, and religion, however, lay in the controversial realm of regional budget distribution, ethno-regional and religious relations, and rural-urban migration trends. As my colleague and I traveled through Oromia, one of Ethiopia’s largest regions, and the S.N.N.P region, the densest and most diverse region, we couldn’t escape these controversies. We talked informally with decision makers about their interest in the census results and their use of different types of demographic data for decision-making. Unfortunately, despite the need for reliable data for regional and local planning, skepticism about the results abounds. The long delays in the release of the census results and possible controversies surrounding the findings have predisposed many people to distrust the census data.

Returning to the roads, the people, and the animals I thought long and hard about the history of counting people, the field of demography, and the lives of these people. Whether it’s meant to be or not, a census can turn out to be so much more than a simple count of a nation’s people.

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