united nations regional seminar on census data archiving for africa, addis ababa, ethiopia, 20-23...

United Nations Regional Seminar on Census Data Archiving for Africa, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 20-23 September 2011

Country Practices on Census Data Archiving and Use of Census Micro-data:

Results of Pre-seminar Questionnaire

Session 2


Objectives

To better understand national practices on census data archiving

To examine the regional practices on census data archiving and identify the challenges

Responses by 21 countries Algeria, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cape Verde, Chad, Egypt, Ethiopia, Gambia, Ghana, Kenya, Liberia, Malawi, Mali, Morocco, Rwanda, Senegal, Seychelles, Togo, Uganda, Zambia


Content of the Questionnaire

17 questions covering

A. Archiving paper census questionnaireB. Digital Archiving of Census Micro-data

• Archiving strategy and management• Technological tools for archiving and system security• Documentation• Confidentiality and anonymization• Dissemination of census micro-data• Challenges


Findings


Archiving paper census questionnaire

14 countries have a law/regulation for storing paper census questionnaire

Algeria, Cape Verde, Egypt, Ethiopia, Gambia, Ghana, Kenya, Liberia, Mali, Morocco, Senegal, Rwanda, Uganda, Zambia

Paper census questionnaires are stored up to; 5+ years (Uganda) 10 years (Gambia, Kenya, Rwanda, Zambia) 20 years (Ghana) Until the next census (Ethiopia)


Digital Archiving of Census Micro-data


Archiving Strategy – Management

7 Countries have a law/regulation for archiving of census micro-data

The Law …. Mandates to document and archive data and

other documents at all levels with a view of making statistical information (Ghana)

Instructs to send the clean data with a complete documentation to the Information Systems Technology for archiving (Ethiopia)

Mandates to document all censuses (Liberia)


System for archiving

16 countries have developed a system for archiving

3 countries have not developed a system

but have a plan for archiving 16 countries have a unit responsible for

archiving in the NSO


System for archiving

Many countries developed the system for archiving fairly recently

The system was established; Before 2000: Gambia 2000: Burundi 2005: Ethiopia 2007: Mali, Senegal, Uganda 2008: Ghana 2009: Burkina Faso, Malawi, Morocco, Zambia 2010: Cape Verde, Liberia, Rwanda


Technological tools for archiving and system security

Tools used or plans to use for archiving

International Household Survey Network Toolkit (IHSN) (17 countries)

Redatam-based IMIS (10 countries)

CSPro (9 countries)

A system developed in house (3 countries)



Procedures to ensure long term usability of census micro-data Back up data regularly and store data in different

location (18 countries) Migrate data periodically (8 countries) Refresh media periodically (7 countries)

Develop a disaster recovery plan Three databases are stored in different location, one in

different organization (Kenya) Inviolable DataCenter (Cape Verde) Keeping backup in different place (Ethiopia)



Security measures to ensure protection of archived data

Servers set aside for storage of census micro-data only and are kept in secure rooms (Kenya)

Few authorized persons have rights of access to servers where the archived data (Egypt, Ethiopia, Gambia, Kenya, Malawi, Senegal, Seychelles, Zambia)


Documentation

All countries which have a system of archiving use a standard tool for documentation, except Algeria.

Tools being used: IHSN metadata toolkit, Data Documentation Initiative (DDI)

IMIS and Toolkit


Documentation

Information documented in archives

■ Variables/definitions (18 countries) ■ Census methodology (16 countries) ■ Data processing procedures (14 countries) ■ Structure and formatting of the dataset (13 countries)■ Coding instructions and classifications (13 countries) ■ Sampling methodology and weighting (13 countries)■ Confidentiality and anonymization procedures (11

countries)■ Evaluation of data quality (9 countries)


Confidentiality and Anonymization

16 countries have the statistical law which includes clause(s) to ensure confidentiality of census micro-data

Procedures to anonymize census micro-data Names and address of persons are not entered during data

capture (Gambia, Rwanda, Togo) Removal of identifiers, aggregation of categories, hiding

extreme values (Kenya) Removing the unique identifiers (household number,

village/place) (Egypt, Malawi, Senegal, Seychelles, Uganda) No storage of names in files, reorganize and recode

variables to make broader groups (Burkina Faso)


Dissemination of census micro-data

History of census data archiving

Census Round Number of countries conducted census

Percentage of countries archived micro-data

2010 14 79%

2000 15 87%

1990 12 67%

1980 13 38%



Most countries provide access to the archived census micro-data, except Algeria and Uganda

Procedures to access micro-data Intranet authorized access (Burundi) Access is allowed locally through the Lab (Cape Verde) A signed agreement with users, to permit trusted users to

access semi-anonymised data files (Gambia) A signed agreement with users (Ghana) Written request to the LISGIS (Liberia) Formal request of data (Malawi, Mali, Seychelles, Togo) Accessing micro-data through the National Data Archive

(Senegal, Zambia)



9 countries disseminate samples of census micro-data Burkina Faso (10%) Ethiopia (1%) Gambia Ghana (1%) Liberia Malawi (10%) Senegal (10%) Uganda (10%) Zambia


Challenges


Challenges in Census Data Archiving

Lack of specific laws/regulations/policies for archiving

Determining anonymisation and dissemination procedures Absence of disaster recovery plan Sustainability of archiving process No general guidelines for choosing a suitable platform to

archive census data

Lack of adequate and skilled manpower Limited funds


Challenges in Census Data Archiving

Absence of a secure and permanent storage facility Unavailability of census documents (questionnaire,

manuals, codebooks) Lost of data in original census databases Lack of consistent or harmonized definitions, categories,

classifications of variables among different censuses Lack of mechanism to cross check the quality of micro-

data


Thank you !

united nations regional seminar on census data archiving for africa, addis ababa, ethiopia, 20-23...

Documents

census data archiving

census ethiopia slide

archiving ethiopia mandates

use of census microdata

archiving strategy management

clean data

archive data

addis ababa