Overview

The CARICOM Community Council of Ministers (Council) the second highest organ of CARICOM has mandated the CARICOM Secretariat,  since the 1980 Census Round[1], to organise and coordinate the meetings of the Regional Census Coordinating Committee (RCCC) and to develop and execute a Regional Census Strategy to support all CARICOM countries in the conduct of this large statistical activity. The (RCCC) reports to the Standing Committee of Caribbean Statisticians, which was established by the CARICOM Common Market Council[2], in 1974.

Knowledge Management through the Regionally Coordinated Approach to Census-taking in CARICOM:

As mentioned earlier CARICOM has been employing a formal regionally coordinated approach, which is a well- established and proven strategy for the use of uniform concepts and definitions, common core questions on the census questionnaires, which will be used by all countries. This approach promotes collaboration among countries and with the International Development Partners (IDPs), which is a key feature of the regional coordination strategy.  It also provides for the exchange of best practices, guidelines, manual, and questionnaire designs (e.g. the CARICOM Common Census Questionnaire and Methodologies). Some additional elements of Knowledge Management and Census-taking in CARICOM include:

  • Achieving success by working together within the Regional Census Coordinating Committee (RCCC) to solve common problems, facilitating a rich exchange of experiences and best practices, undertaking regional training and networking and technical and material support among countries and through the Secretariat;
  • Ensuring cost savings from the sharing of facilities, expertise and other resources g. Belize lending their data capture equipment accompanied by their expert to other countries in the 200o Census Round- this cost was met under the regional census strategy;
  • Facilitating the comparability of the census data for participating countries with a common questionnaire and other instruments of data collection, including a common core of questions, and uniform concepts and definition. For the 2010 Census Round this was supported by and IDB project and for the 2020 Census Round it was possible for countries to come together with whatever funding was available and review the questionnaire from the 2010 Round. Sustainability of this process was therefore realized.

Production of Regional Public Goods through the CARICOM Regionally Coordinated Approach for the 2020 Census Round

The overall objective of the Regional Census Strategy for the 2020 Census Round is to

provide support in enabling the availability of timely, high quality and comparable Census Data for Planning and Decision-Making in the Caribbean Region from the conduct of the Population and Housing Census 2020 Round.  Critically, the CARICOM Regional Census Strategy seeks to produce regional goods, similar to outputs for the previous round mentioned earlier and among other outputs for the current Round. Key Regional Public Goods that will contribute to Knowledge Management in the Census 2020 Round include:

  • A Project Management Framework prepared with relevant Manuals and training conducted out of an International Development Bank (IDB)- funded project as part of the CARICOM Regional Census Strategy.;
  • A common approach to Census Mapping/GIS developed and training delivered- also- IDB funded ;
  • A management framework in the use of Computer Assisted Personal Interviewing (CAPI) produced and Training delivered/good practices identified to enable readiness for the use of IT-based and innovative data capture method in the Census;
  • A modernised web-based regional Census-e-portal to incorporate data from past and future  Census Rounds that is GIS enabled to promote the use of the Census data;
  • Preparation of census dissemination products including user-friendly briefs and analytical products, national census reports and regional special topic monographs prepared;
  • A revised Common Census Questionnaire, Guidelines and other similar products.


[1] Prior to this formalisation there was some element of regional coordination led by Trinidad and Tobago and Jamaica that possessed expert demographers at that time.

[2] This Council is now called the Caribbean Community Council of Ministers.

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