Mr William Adum, the Municipal Chief Executive of the Kassena Nankana Municipal (KNM) in the Upper East Region has called on stakeholders and residents of the Municipality, to cooperate with the census officials during the population and housing census (PHC) exercise.

He said it would be the first fully digital census to be conducted in the country and would give high quality and faster results to support the decision making process.

Assemblies, he said would also receive census information tabulated by their own constituencies to improved monitoring within the country's governance structure.

Mr Adum who made the call at the launch of the 30 days population census in Navrongo, the Municipal capital, said the information to be gathered would cover several new and important areas such as housing and living conditions of persons, water and sanitation, access to public service and daily activities of residents among many others.

He said information on population growth dynamics was important and needed by Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDA) in planning for the development needs of their areas and the population data would help them to know where to allocate health and educational facilities, how to allocate social expenditures and identify those who really needed help in society.

He said it was important for everyone to remember the census night because "you will be counted according to where you spend the census night in the country but you do not have to change your location or travel to your village to be enumerated, the census officials will visit every residence and structure to count everyone".

Mr Adum appealed to the media especially social media users not to create controversies with such an important national exercise because the census data would save lives and improve livelihoods, "I would rather urge you to use your platforms to support the publicity, education and advocacy of the exercise".

Mr Edward Chanagia, the Municipal Census Officer, said the exercise would start with the listing of physical structures on June 13, 2021, to be followed by the census night on June 27 while enumeration of people would start on June 28.

He said public education on the census had commenced and urged all stakeholders, including Traditional and Religious authorities to spread the census message to the communities.

The 2021 Population and housing census is on the theme of the Sustainable Development goals (SDGs), 'Leave no one behind'.

Stakeholders at the launch included traditional authorities, religious groups, GPRTU and heads of departments among others.

The stakeholders pledged their support to the municipal census committee to enable it carry out a successful census.