TIRANA, Oct. 9, 2022 – Experts in social and economic areas are raising concerns about the continued postponement of a national census and are seeking a firm implementation date from Albania’s Institute of Statistics, Instat.
Albanians learned back in August that they will be waiting at least another year to find out vital data about their country as the state’s statisticians have decided to postpone the census for another year — for the third time in a row.
The census was due in October 2020, but the pandemic made it impossible to conduct for two years as in-person visits are required. The latest postponement from October 2022 to 2023 appears to be due to technical and funding issues.
The main reason given was the failure of a public tender to purchase the electronic pads that census workers would use.
Experts writing in Albanian media noted that the registration of the resident population as well as their homes and buildings is of great importance for the planning of public investments as well as for budget allocations for public services — such as kindergartens, schools and health services. As such, not having a firm date for 2023 is worrisome, they note.
Instat, the Albanian state’s statistics entity, says it is determined to conduct the census based on criteria set by the United Nations and its EU counterpart, Eurostat.
The national census is a large undertaking as Instat has to hire a large number of census workers and train them appropriately.
All over the world, based on international standards, censuses take place every decade.
The last one in Albania took place in 2011 and was marred by some controversy in particular on asking questions about religion and nationality, which many people refused to answer and thus the results in those categories are widely seen as inaccurate.
The largest finding in 2011 was that Albania’s population was 2.831 million, compared to 3.069 million in 2001.
The census also showed that the majority of Albanians, 53.7 percent, now live in urban areas, with urban residents outnumbering the rural population for the first time in the history of censuses in Albania.
More than one million Albanians living in Western Europe and North America were not included in the census of 2011 as it only looked at resident population, a normal standard everywhere.
The first census of the Albanian state was conducted in 1923, a decade after independence. The scheduled census would be the 12th since then.
