The South Sudan government in partnership with the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) on Thursday launched Population Estimation Survey (PEE) 2021 to enable planning and service delivery.

The exercise—which will be the first of its kind since the country attained independence in 2011— aims to assess data on population in the ten states and three administrative areas.

Vice President and Chair of Economic Cluster Dr James Wani Iggga, who was the chief guest at the launch of the survey, underscored the importance of the activities in guiding developmental policy and decision making in the nation.

He said, “The PES will provide effective coordination across government sectors, donors, the private sectors, universities, the UN and NGOs for the collection, processing and utilisation of such data to support national development efforts.”

“An efficient national system for the generation and dissemination of population data, and demographic intelligence including in humanitarian settings, is critical for evidence based planning and decision making,” Dr. Igga added.

Since independence in 2011, South Sudan relies on 2008 Sudan’s population and household census which placed the number of South Sudanese at 12.6 million.

However, the recent UN’s data on South Sudan population invalidates 2008’s result, estimates that the current number could be about 11 million, contrary the National Bureau of Statistics’ estimate.

”We projected the current number of South Sudanese to be 13 million based on the data on the birth rate and people coming into the country,” Isaiah Chol, Chairperson of NBS said during the launch of PES.

“This survey does not in any way substitute population and household census. This survey will [be the] path way for conducting population and household census in the future,” he added.

Last month, the government of Sweden donated equipment to the NBS and facilitated training in conducting the survey.

This week, the government of Kenya also donated more equipment to the institution to support the country’s future population and household census projected to precede the general election expected to take place during the interim period.