The General Authority for Statistics organized a virtual webinar on the Saudi Census 2022, with the participation of a number of GASTAT employees and international experts, to introduce the census methodology and the efforts made in its implementation, after announcing the results of the first phase of the Saudi Census 2022, which included demographics, households and housing.
In the course of the webinar, the participating international experts confirmed that the Saudi census 2022 is one of the most powerful population censuses that have been implemented recently in the Arab region and the Middle East due to the combination between register-based data and field enumeration. They pointed out that the high level of integration and participation between government entities, and the development of digital infrastructure in Saudi Arabia contributed to achieving data quality, making it a pioneering experience in the framework of combining and comparing multiple sources.
The webinar addressed several axes, most notably the statistical methodology that was used in the Saudi census 2022, which international experts described as a professional methodology. It went through several stages, beginning with the preparation of the census project, then collecting, analyzing, and processing statistical data, and finally extracting and publishing the results in line with international best practices.
The webinar discussed the technical aspect of the Saudi census 2022, and the impact of the great development in the digital infrastructure witnessed by Saudi Arabia with the launch of Vision 2030. This helped in raising GASTAT’s technical capabilities, as the latest modern technologies were used in the census project, such as self-enumeration. Field enumeration process relied on geospatial data, using satellite images with the aim of improving geographical coverage, accuracy of sorting addresses, and ensuring that no dwelling was overlooked during enumeration. Satellites have also contributed to verifying dwellings data with high accuracy.
The webinar included a discussion of the main quality standards that were applied in the data collection phase to ensure coverage of the entire population, and comparisons between what was applied in the Saudi census 2022 and the procedures used in a number of countries of the world, including the United States of America, the United Kingdom, and Australia, in addition to talking about the pivotal role GASTAT undertakes to maintain the highest levels of confidentiality and privacy for individuals and to protect their personal data that they provided during the data collection phase.
The webinar revealed that GASTAT has allocated an integrated team to review and audit the data, and made more than a million calls to ensure the quality of work, in addition to carrying out (900,000) additional field visits to ensure the accuracy and quality of the data collected. It also compared five different sources of data and reviewed them through 200 indicators of data quality. This had a great impact in providing an accurate population database that will be used as a reliable basis for developing economic and social policies.
The webinar emphasized that this reflects the importance of the census project in providing accurate and reliable data and various statistical indicators on the demographics of Saudi Arabia that support decision-makers and contribute to the development of plans and policy-making in all sectors and fields.