Vol 87 2010 The Monthly June.pdf - Central Statistical Office of Zambia

LAYMAN AND STATISTICS
An index of industrial production (IIP) measures changes over time in the volume of work
done in various sectors of industry, limited to the production of commodities, excluding
agriculture and services. More precisely, it is defined as the ratio of the volume of
commodities produced within a specified group of industries in a given time period to
the volume produced in the same group of industries in a specified base period.
Note that the IIP only covers mining and quarrying, manufacturing, and electricity.
IIP growth rate
The growth rate in the IIP refers to the change between the current and the previous
period indices expressed as a percentage. This is a measure of the increase/decrease in
output (production) from one period to another.
CENSUS SCHEDULED FOR OCTOBER
2010!
The Census of Population and Housing is carried out under the provisions of the Census
and Statistics ACT Chapter 127 of the laws of Zambia. Under this ACT the Central
Statistical Office is mandated to carry out a Census of Population and Housing every ten
years. The first comprehensive census was carried out in 1969. Since then, three more
censuses have been carried out, in 1980, 1990 and 2000. The next census will be carried
out this year (2010).
Under this ACT, all persons residing in Zambia, except foreign diplomats accredited to
Zambia are required to provide the necessary information.
WHAT IS A CENSUS?
A Census of Population and Housing is defined as the total process of collecting,
compiling, evaluating, analyzing and publishing demographic, economic and social data
pertaining, at a specified time or times, to all persons in a designated area or the whole
country. It is the primary source of information about the population of a country. It is
undertaken at regular intervals, usually after ten years.
WHY HOLD A CENSUS?
The main objective of conducting a Population Census is to enumerate all the people in
the country in order to provide the Government, private organizations, individuals, and
other stakeholders with the number of persons in each district, township, locality, village,
etc., according to age, sex, and other characteristics. For every aspect of planning, it is
essential to know the size, structure and distribution of the population of a country. For
instance, to plan for education, the country needs to have numbers of the school going
population by sex and age.
CENSUS ACTIVITIES
Being a huge undertaking, the census encompasses various activities for its success. These
include pre census, census and post census activities. Pre census activities include census
32