Kenya population and housing census.

24 Aug, 2009

The 2009 population and housing census is underway in Kenya with officials set to visit around 12 million households across the country during the exercise.

Operations got underway on 24 August amid controversy over a question about ethnic origin just 18 months after violence partly of an ethnic nature left 1,500 people dead and 300,000 displaced in the wake of disputed presidential elections in December 2007. Other questions are aimed at gaining information about livestock ownership, living standards and housing conditions.

In total 115,000 census officials (wearing red t-shirts), 22,000 supervisors (blue) and 6,000 senior supervisors (green) are involved in the survey, which will cost the government a total of Ksh7.4 billion according to the newspaper