KABUL – Abdul Rahman Ghafoori, President of Central Statistics Organization (CSO), Laurent Zessler, UNFPA Representative in Afghanistan, and Makoto Matsuda, Counselor from the Embassy of Japan in Kabul, launched today the Socio-Demographic and Economic Survey (SDES) results for Bamiyan Province.

"This activity is a milestone in the history of statistics in Afghanistan as this is the first large scale data collection activity since the 1979 population census,” said Ghafoori. He further noted that CSO will continue to build and improve its capacity in order to plan, collect, process and analyze data even more efficiently, while also improving evidence-based planning, programme monitoring and project evaluation. He likewise appealed to the donors to support the undertaking for the rest of the country’s 31 provinces. He said that CSO should be able to complete the survey in all provinces by 2014.

Ghafoori also expressed his appreciation to UNFPA for its technical support, and to the Governments of Japan and Denmark for the funding. He also thanked the Governor of Bamiyan for her commitment and dedication to improve the lives of her constituents, and for recognizing the importance of data to the development of the province.

The survey provides socio-demographic and economic indicators that are important for sustainable development of the province: population size by sex and age, education, mortality, employment, functional difficulty, sources of drinking water and of energy for cooking, heating, and lighting, materials of roof, walls, and floor, and other housing and household characteristics.

The SDES revealed that there were 368,000 people in Bamiyan as of September 2011, comprised of 190,000 males and 178,000 females, or a sex ratio of 107 males for every 100 females. Half of its population is 16 years old and below, implying a young population.

The literacy rate of population 15 years old and over is 31.7%, i.e. 45.4% for males and 16.5% for females. These rates are higher than the country's literacy rate of 26%, 39% and 12%, respectively.

It is also found that four in five women (82.6%) were 10 years old and over, and had at least one child born. The average number of children per woman aged 15 to 49 years old was 4.1 (41 children for every 10 women).

The survey also recorded 49,600 households in Bamiyan, with an average household size of 7.4 persons, which is slightly higher than the national level (7.3 persons). Households used animal dung for heating and cooking, and solar power for electricity. Houses in the province were mostly made of wood (87.8%), with almost all floors made of mud (96.1%) and walls constructed with mud/dirt bricks (81.7%).

One in four households in Bamiyan (25.2%) had access to improved drinking water source: piped water (10.3%), tube well borehole/protected well (7.5 %) and protected spring (7.4%). This is lower than the national estimate of 27.2%.

"I congratulate CSO for the successful completion of the survey, and express gratitude to the Governor of Bamiyan for the support and strong desire to obtain data on the smallest administrative unit, village and district, which will help the province to design and prepare plans based on reliable data," said Zessler. He further added that UNFPA will continue to support CSO in conducting SDES in the provinces, and that data will be available for the country's sustainable development.

The SDES project in Bamiyan was launched on August 2011, starting off with the sketch mapping and listing of the area. Training was also held for about 500 surveyors and controllers, and statistics officers and assistants.

The enumeration phase followed in September 2011 throughout villages and districts. The survey was extended for some time in several areas due to the difficulty in accessing remote villages. After a six-month long data processing – which included editing and coding of questionnaires, data entry, revalidation of data, data evaluation, and analysis – survey results are now ready and available.

For more information, please contact: 
In CSO: Sami Nabi, tel. +93 700 281 163, or Eidmarjan Samoon, tel. +93 799 148 621, samooned@yahoo.com 
In UNFPA: Payab Younus, tel. +93 700 089 657, payab@unfpa.org, or Ahmadullah Amarkhil, tel. +93 700 263 232, amarkhil@unfpa.org