1.    Preliminary

The General Population Census of Cambodia, 1998 was conducted in March 1998 with midnight of March 3, (00 hours) as the reference time. It revealed a population of 11.4 million. The last official census, conducted 36 years ago in 1962, counted a population of 5.7 million.

2.    Background

As there was no census for more than three decades due to war and serious political disturbances, no comprehensive and satisfactory population database existed for use in development plans and programmes of Cambodia. It was in this background, that in 1993, as soon as a democratically elected government was established, the Royal Government of Cambodia requested the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) to provide technical and financial support for conducting a population census.

The Census project was implemented in two phases, while a complementary project for census publicity was developed at a later stage. The first phase of the Census Project was provided for by UNFPA-funded project CMB/94/P02-Support to National Population Census of Cambodia (Phase I). Under this project (1995-96), a team of technical staff commenced the census preliminary work in 1995. A census office was established and equipped within the National Institute of Statistics (NIS) of the Ministry of Planning, a number of NIS staff and provincial staff were trained in demographic statistics, census and data processing, internally and at reputed institutions abroad. This was very necessary, as NIS had no staff with census experience. The conduct of national-level Demographic Survey of Cambodia (DSC), covering 20,000 households, in March 1996 as part of Phase I activities, helped in training staff of the NIS and the provincial and district level statistical system to carry out successfully a large-scale data collection exercise. The DSC data which were disseminated through reports and diskettes in December 1996 were welcomed and appreciated by the Royal Government of Cambodia as well as data users.

Phase II of the UNFPA funded census project (1997-99) CMB/97/P02 focused on capacity building in the preparation for the census, the conduct of the Population Census in March 1998, census data processing, and analysis and dissemination of the census results.

For Phases I and II of the project and for census publicity, UNFPA funded about US$1.4 million, 4.9 million and 0.5 million respectively, making a total of US$6.8 million. UNDP shared US$0.7 million in Phase II to provide census vehicles and some other equipment. The Royal Government of Cambodia also contributed towards census fieldwork expenditure.

3.    Preparations

The Demographic Survey of 1996 marked the beginning of the preparation for the census. Two questionnaires (Form A House list and Form B Household questionnaire), developed for the demographic survey, were slightly revised to suit census purposes. They were further refined based on the experience of the first pre-test in selected areas in January 1997, suggestions made at the First Data Users Meeting (April 1997) and recommendations of the Census Technical Committee (April and June 1997). Finally a pilot census was carried out in June 1997 in sample areas with the help of teachers which showed that with some minor changes, the questionnaires and the instruction manuals developed could be used in the census.

One of the most important pre-census activities was to develop maps at various administrative levels. For the purpose of enumeration, each enumerator was to be given an enumeration area (EA) with definite boundaries. An EA, with an average size of about 100 households, might be a village or part of a village (in the case of large villages). Starting from December 1996 the work of preparing village sketch maps and delineating the Enumeration Areas was completed in about a years time.

4.    Methodology

De Facto enumeration

The census was conducted on a de facto basis. In other words, all persons staying in Cambodia on the Census Night were enumerated in the place they were found present. These persons included foreigners but excluded foreign diplomatic corps and the like and their families. Officials of Cambodia's missions and their families living in other countries were enumerated by mailing questionnaires to them with the help of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Canvasser Method

The method of enumeration adopted was the canvasser method.

An officially appointed enumerator visited every household in
the allotted EA and collected for every person the information
required. This information was recorded on the census
questionnaire. Special arrangements were made to enumerate
homeless population, those staying in hotels and guest houses,
transient population and those living in boats on the night of
March 2, 1998.

The enumeration of persons in military barracks was carried
out by the barracks personnel who were specially trained.
The main census enumeration was conducted during March 3
to 12 (ten days) with midnight of March 3 as reference time.
It was preceded by house listing (February 27 to March 2) in
each EA which included (i) updating of EA map (ii) numbering
of residential and partially residential buildings and marking them on EA map and (iii) filling in the house list (Form A).

Geographical Frame

The Geographical frame for the 1998 census followed the defined structure of province, district, commune and village. There are 24 provinces in the country which include the municipality of Phnom Penh and the "Krong" or "Towns" of Preah Sihanouk, Kaeb and Pailin. These provinces are divided into 183 districts which are subdivided into 1,609 communes containing 13,406 villages. Census enumeration covered the entire inhabited geographical areas with the exception of a few areas which were inaccessible during the census due to military operations. These areas were: (i) Whole districts of Anlong Veaeng in Otdar Mean Chey province, Samlot in Bat Dambang province and Veal Veaeng in Pousat province (ii) Ou Bei Choan village of Ou Chrov district in Banteay Mean Chey province. The population in these excluded areas is estimated to be about 45,000. The refugee population, temporarily displaced to Thailand, was not included in the census as it was conducted on a de facto basis.

There were some difficult areas in the country which were not approachable by road or motor transport. They were reached by enumerators only by walk or by such transport like cycle, ox-drawn cart, boat etc. Moreover, enumerators had to be careful about areas which were mined. Being local people, the enumerators were familiar with such danger zones.

5.    Census Organization

Census Decree

The 1998 Census was conducted under the authority of the Royal Decree (Kret) No. JS/RKT/02-96/08 dated February 29, 1996 on the organization of the General Population Census of Cambodia. According to this Decree, the Ministry of Planning is responsible for the General Population Census with the National Institute of Statistics (NIS) as the implementing agency. The Decree inter alia ensures confidentiality of personal information collected in the census.

Organization Structure

The National Committee for the General Population Census of Cambodia constituted by Sub-decree No. 12 dated January 31, 1997, under the chairmanship of HE Deputy Prime Minister and Co-Minister, Ministry of Interior, had the responsibility for instructing, deciding and endorsing all general items of work pertaining to the census. The Census Technical Committee with HE Minister of Planning as chairman dealt with technical issues relating to the census. In the conduct of the census, the population census office of the National Institute of Statistics (NIS) under the Director of Census was the central unit that served as the monitoring, communication and action centre for the census. It had seven divisions each in charge of a specific activity, like administration, planning and monitoring etc. The Province Director of Planning acted as the Province Census Officer (PCO) for his / her province and was responsible for the operations in the province. A middle level officer of the NIS was posted at each provincial headquarters as Regional Officer (RO). Trained junior officers of NIS were posted in provinces as Assistant Regional Officers at the rate of one for three or four districts. The Regional and Assistant Regional Officers acted as technical advisers to the province census officers. A Provincial Census Committee, with the Governor of the Province as chairperson, was established in each province to assist in implementing the census successfully.

The District Officer assisted by his/her staff was the officer in charge of census operations in the District. The Commune Officer was the census charge officer for the commune. He/she was assisted in technical matters by an officer from Province / District Offices and Area Supervisors. Enumerators were drawn from school teachers and other officials at the rate of one enumerator for an EA. Generally one supervisor was appointed to closely supervise the work of three to four enumerators depending on the size and location of EAs. Regional Census Coordinators (six UN Volunteers and one consultant) were appointed in remote provinces for guiding the Province Census Officers and supervising the census in those provinces.

Recruitment and Training

About 25,000 enumerators and 8,350 supervisors were appointed to do the enumeration by visiting each and every household. They were drawn mostly from teachers.

Census Questionnaires

Two questionnaires were used in the 1998 Census of Cambodia. These were called: Form A: House list and Form B: Household Questionnaire. Form A: House list which was canvassed during the preliminary round was used to collect the following information in respect of buildings which had households in them: Building / Structure number, predominant construction material of wall, roof and floor of building, whether building is wholly or partly residential, household number, and name and sex of head of household and number of persons usually living in the household.

Form B: Household Questionnaire had four parts:- Parts 1, 2, 3, and 4. This was used for census enumeration during March 3 to 12, 1998 in all households. In Part 1, information on usual members of household present on Census Night (March 3, 1998), visitors present on the Census Night and usual members absent on the Census Night was collected.

Part 2 of Form B, was used to collect the following information in respect of each usual member of household present and each visitor to household: Full name, relationship to head of household, sex, age, marital status, mother tongue, religion, birth place, previous residence, duration of stay, reason for migration, literacy, full time education and economic characteristics.

In Part 3 of Form B, fertility information of females aged 15 and over in the household was collected. In Part 4 of Form B, following information was collected on housing conditions and facilities: basis of occupancy of the dwelling by the household (like owner occupied or rented), main source of light available to the household, main cooking fuel used by household, whether toilet facility was available within premises, main source of drinking water supply for the household and number of rooms occupied by the household.

Field Supervision

The census was closely supervised by census supervisors and commune, district and province officials. National and International staff as well as the Minister of Planning and UNFPA Representative visited several areas to oversee the census operations. A team consisting of three international observers who inspected the census operations in different parts of the country, concluded that the census coverage and quality was generally good.

Publicity Campaign

For successfully conducting the census, people had to be informed well in advance about the scope and purposes of the census to get their co-operation. They had to be convinced that the information collected in the census would be kept confidential. For this purpose a complementary project called “Advocacy and Public Information Campaign for the Population Census” CMB/97/P08 was executed by UNESCO with UNFPA funding of about 0.5 million US dollars.

The project assisted in mobilising all the relevant communication networks in Cambodia. This included physical networks, such as those of the main line ministries and of the cults (mainly the pagoda), the electronic networks (especially radio and television) and the press. The more traditional campaign networks at commune, district and provincial level were also used, along with communication through banners, stickers, etc.

It also assisted in: (i) mobilising all the key personalities of the country, including the Members of Parliament, to support the campaign (ii) training of the press, the journalists, the editors and the information officers of the ministries on all issues related to the census (iii) co-operating with Cambodian institutions and staff for the production of all the publicity materials for the campaign.

All the radio/television spots and programmes produced during the campaign were done by or in co-operation with the existing Cambodia stations. An easily identifiable character created for census publicity called "Louk Chumroeun” or “Mr. Census” was very popular with the people. According to the evaluation survey conducted soon after the census, the advocacy and public information campaign for the census was a great success, reaching more than 90 percent of the population.

6.    Data processing , analysis and dissemination

Data processing was the major post-census activity. It included manual coding and editing of census documents and data entry from more than two million census questionnaires using sixty computers. Initially a large number of statistical tables were generated at different geographical levels after consultation with data users. More cross tabulations were produced during analysis.

The National Institute of Statistics is making efforts to ensure that census results become widely accessible, using a range of media, including CD-ROMs and printed reports.

The preliminary census results were released through a publication in August 1998. This was followed by the release of final census results through another publication in September 1999. Two CD-ROMs have been released, the first containing as many as 11,000 statistical tables at country, province and district levels, and the second containing data on social and demographic characteristics for more than 13,000 villages. The statistical table volumes for provinces have also been released.

In addition, several reports containing in-depth analyses of census results are proposed to the released before June 2000. Two more electronic dissemination products have been recently finalized. The first one is a mapping and graphic database using the PopMap software package. It contains 123 indicators upto the commune level. The second product is a population database where users have access to census micro data. With the REDATAM database engine, users can themselves easily produce cross tabulations upto village level. It is proposed to launch a programme of much wider dissemination to cover target groups all over the country and to ensure greater utilization of census and survey data by planners, policy makers and researchers.  

7.    Acknowledgements by H.E. Chhay Than, Minister of Planning

We express our deep sense of gratitude to HE Sar Kheng, Deputy Prime Minister and Co-Minister, Ministry of Interior who is the chairman of the National Census Committee and other members for their guidance from time to time. We thank HE Chea Chanto, former Minister of Planning and chairman of the Technical Committee for the census who coordinated and guided the census operations. We are thankful to HE Suy Sem former Acting Minister of Planning for the keen interest he took in post-census activities. Our thanks are also due to the members of Technical Committee for the Census and the National Steering Committee for Census Information and Education Campaign.   The census operations were carried out mostly with the help of the Province Census Committees headed by Governors of Provinces. We thank the Governors and the members of the Provincial Census Committees for their assistance. The Press, the radio and the TV played a very important role in census publicity and our thanks are due to them.

We wish to place on record our gratitude to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and in particular its successive Representatives in Cambodia, Dr. Vincent Fauveau, Mr. Hedi Jemai and Ms Yoshiko Zenda for providing the necessary funding and technical assistance. We also thank the staff of UNFPA office Cambodia for their continued assistance. We are grateful to the United Nations Department for Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) for their co-operation in executing the project. We thank the UNDP for providing funds for census vehicles, computers and other equipment and the UNESCO for successfully implementing the advocacy and public information campaign for the census. We thank the advisers of UNFPA/CST and ESCAP who have assisted the national staff in analyzing the census results. Our thanks are due to Mr. Nott Rama Rao, Chief Technical Adviser, Mr. Harry Lode, Data Processing Adviser and the several UN Volunteers of the Census Project for their constant assistance and guidance.

The success of the census operations is mainly due to the teamwork in the census organization itself. The Census of Cambodia is a massive administrative-cum-statistical exercise and its completion has been possible with the total help and co-operation received from one and all. The major share of the credit for the success of the census should go to the people of Cambodia themselves and to the large number of devoted, hard working and loyal enumerators, supervisors, village chiefs, commune, district and province census officers and their colleagues, Regional and Assistant Regional Officers and other staff of NIS and Ministry of Planning drafted for census as well as data processing work.