26 April 2004

Dili, Timor-Leste: A team of 18 UN Volunteers have been mobilized to support Timor-Leste’s first census since independence in 2002.

The census, organized by the National Statistics Directorate of the Ministry of Finance and Planning and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), will start 11 July 2004 and is expected to last two weeks. The National Statistics Directorate, UNFPA and the UN Volunteers (UNV) programme have started the process of setting up a nation-wide network of over 3,500 field staff who will gather information by going door-to-door.

Serving as District Managers in Timor-Leste’s 13 districts, one UN Volunteer from Australia, ten from New Zealand, and two from Timor-Leste have already taken up their work. Responsibilities include the administration, recruitment of local enumerators and support staff, and implementation of field operations during the census process in each district. They are also the focal point for local chiefs and village administrations for the census in each constituency.

UNV Programme Officer Oliver Wittershagen (Germany) said there are numerous challenges that could influence the success of the process. “Landslides during this year’s rainy season (March/April) have left many key roads between villages impassable. The elementary infrastructure, especially in rural regions, plus the fact that almost half of the population is illiterate are just some of the challenges we have to deal with.”

UNFPA advisory staff, who have been in Dili since early April, have started the process of training enumerators in the art of interviewing, mapping, and data collection techniques. UNFPA’s Allen Harbrow, Chief Technical Advisor for the census said using Global Positioning Satellites (GPS) and aerial photomaps for coding homes and questionnaires has already made the Timor-Leste census, from a technology perspective, very unique. “By the time the census is finished there will be hundreds of people who will have gained new skills in GPS mapping, data entry, survey management and supervision.” One of the long-term objectives of the UNFPA is to help create an infrastructure for the National Statistics Directorate for producing reliable and timely demographic data through population censuses.

Manuel Mendonca, Director of Timor-Leste’s National Statistics Directorate said the census would “provide extensive and important information about the nation’s demographics, employment, education and housing conditions. The country has been divided into 1168 enumeration areas and interviewers will visit approximately 180,000 households during a two-week period starting 11 July, Census Day.”

Since independence in 2002, UNV and UNFPA have jointly engaged in a variety of projects in Timor-Leste, including the "Provision of Reproductive Health Services and Training in East Timor" initiative, in which three Obstetrician/Gynecologists (one from the Philippines, Nepal, and Germany respectively) provide care for expectant mothers and newborn children.

Helping Timor-Leste achieve independence was the largest UNV operation in the organization's history. Some 3,000 UN Volunteers served during the process and in fact, UN Volunteers were the first international UN personnel to return to East Timor in October 1999, after weeks of heavy fighting.

UN Volunteers later worked under the UN Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET) in various sectors of relief and development, including forestry and fisheries, border control, district finances, human rights, migration, forensics, civil engineering, water and sanitation, research and census, health, trade, taxation, public information, judicial and political affairs. Currently, 219 UN Volunteers support the United Nations Mission of Support in East Timor (UNMISET), the successor mission to UNTAET.