TASHKENT, November 19, 2021 – State Committee on Statistics (Goscomstat) and United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) organized a debriefing meeting on preliminary findings and recommendations of the international census Observation Mission of the pilot population census in the Republic of Uzbekistan.

The pilot census is an important step to test all aspects of the census preparation before the main census.  It is planned to be carried out on 1-25 November 2021 in Yukori Chirchik district of Tashkent region, Yashnabad district of Tashkent city, Khiva city of Khorezm region, and Khojaabad district of Andijan region. This territory covers 594 thousand people, which is 1.8% of the total population of the Republic of Uzbekistan.

To address some operational and technical challenges, pilot census observation mission was conducted in four pilot districts. The main objectives of the observation mission were to understand the potential issues and challenges, to assess the quality of the census enumeration process, its alignment with international standards and to draw recommendations to successfully conduct the main census. The observation mission consists of experienced census professionals from CIS Stat, Belarus Stat, US Census Bureau, EU and UNHCR have visited pilot districts and developed recommendations for the main census.  

Observers have noted the impressive progress made in a short period of time by the State Committee on Statistics for census preparation despite the challenges and lack of experience in conducting a population census. Recommendations on further improvement of the regulatory framework, methodological documents, cartographic materials, census personnel recruitment and training, awareness raising, and information campaigns have been developed and shared.

The census is a large-scale event that allows you to take a "photograph" of the country's population at a certain point in time and is a reliable source of information about the population. The legal basis for the population census is the Law of the Republic of Uzbekistan "On Population Census", adopted on March 16, 2020. This law is the first law on the population census adopted during the years of independence and regulates relations in the field of population census.

At the event, experts answered in detail all the journalists' questions.