The importance of valid, reliable and timely data for population policy and programmes has been emphasized repeatedly in various international and regional forums, including the International Conference on Population and Development held in Cairo in 1994.  The 1992 Bali Declaration on Population and  Sustainable Development urged governments to give priority to the application of modern information technologies in population data production and dissemination.

Against that background, the ESCAP secretariat designed a project to promote the effective utilization of modern technology in population data collection, capture, storage, processing, analysis and dissemination.  The basic thrust of the project is to share  experiences of the advanced countries with other countries of the region.

The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) agreed to fund the project for implementation commencing in late 1996.  However, due to staff resource constraints in the Statistics Division of ESCAP, the initiation of project implementation had to be postponed to 1997.

• improving the capabilities of member and associate member countries/areas of ESCAP in the application of modern information technology in population statistics production and dissemination
• raising  awareness of the role of computerization and sharing information and experience, and
• the development of selected applications utilizing modern technology in three pilot countries.

As envisaged in the project plan, the ESCAP Statistics Division as the executing agency established in April 1997 a Working Party on the Application of New Technology in Population Data.  It consists of one expert from each of eight selected countries/areas of the region (Australia, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Japan, Macau, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand), and an additional invited member from New Zealand.  The tenure of the Working Party continues until the end of the project (1999), and it meets frequently and reports to the ESCAP Committee on Statistics. 

• Selection of three pilot countries to undertake activities leading to the establishment or adaptation of IT applications in population statistics.
• Identification of priorities and provision of guidance in the systematic application of technology - in areas such as data capture, coding, editing, tabulation, analysis, databases and presentation of  spatially referenced data using geographic information systems (GIS).
• Consolidation of country experiences and sharing them within the region

• Under the guidance of the Working Party, specific national activities will be commissioned in three developing countries, leading to the establishment or adaptation of IT applications in population statistics.  The selection of countries would be based on the needs, interest, attempts at development and infrastructure of the countries with respect to each application.

• A regional newsletter (the one you are reading) would be published in five issues.  It would carry articles on project activities and country experiences in the effective utilization of information technology to population data
• A training package is to be developed to raise awareness among senior and middle level manager and planners of the importance of technological applications to population data.

The ESCAP secretariat is responsible for project coordination and administration, and is accountable for its overall execution.  The Working Party has a dual role with substantive/ technical (such as providing specialized papers and assisting the exchange of information) and monitoring functions.  The selected national agencies will be responsible for executing pilot applications as specified in separate contracts between them and the secretariat.

The Working Party on the Application of New Technology to Population Data was convened its first meeting at Bangkok from 24 to 26 September 1997.  It agreed on its own terms of reference and decided to restrict the project activities to emerging information technologies in census and survey applications, with data capture, geographic information systems and the use of the Internet as main domains .  Among its other major decisions, Working Party selected three countries to carry out three different types of IT applications.

A review of the recent experiences in the application of information technology, provided by the secretariat at meeting, revealed that population data collected through censuses and surveys were often underutilized as compared to their information value.  The Working Party was confident that the application of appropriate IT was one way to ensure a fuller use of data and to attract new users.  It was, however, concerned about indications that the external financial assistance for developing countries for the 2000 round of population censuses was likely to be at a reduced level compared to the past, and recommended that cooperation between countries in planning and conducting census and related activities should be enhanced.

In other recommendations,  the Working Party urged countries to share the results of their evaluations of technology options for various aspects of population data processing, and to assess all available options in meeting equipment requirements for census operations, including rental of equipment and outsourcing of some of the tasks.

In line with the selected focus, the Working Party decided that the topics and the sites of the three pilot applications should be "imaging technology", "the use of GIS for census operations and dissemination", and "the use of GPS for preparation of census enumeration area maps".  Indonesia, Philippines, and Bangladesh were selected as respective locations for the pilots.  The Working Party authorized the secretariat to work together with the pilot countries to finalize the project designs in a standard format.

The Working Party decided that the "guidelines" to be produced under the project would be on data dissemination (secretariat as the coordinator), on mapping related technologies (Bangladesh and Philippines as coordinators) and on data entry, capture, processing and archiving (Indonesia).  It recommended that each set of "guidelines" should  draw  from  technology practices in the countries and provide options for their implementation.

In order to map out the state of IT use in population data collection, processing and dissemination, the Working Party recommended that the secretariat should conduct a survey among the national statistical offices in the region.  The survey should utilize experience from similar exercises recently conducted by the United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD), and United Nations Population Fund/Country Support Team (UNFPA/CST); in particular the Geographic Information System (GIS) module from the previous UNSD survey should be incorporated. The results of the survey would be submitted to the ESCAP Committee on Statistics in 1998, after a review by the Working Party.  The results of the survey would also be featured in the project newsletter. 

As the Internet could be used at various stages of population data collection and dissemination, the Working Party decided to focus its 2nd session on the topic and related issues.   In that meeting the Working Party will also review the progress on various activities of the project and consider a training proposal to be prepared by Statistical Institute for Asia and the Pacific (SIAP). 

In view of New Zealand's expertise in several relevant technological areas, the Working Party  recommended that it should be invited to nominate an expert to serve as a member of the Working Party.  The Working Party constituted a sub-group ("Working Group") to  review the imaging technologies and facilitate their selection and deployment, with Australia, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore and Indonesia (convener) as members.

The first meeting of the Working Party was an opportunity to compare the recent developments in application of IT to census and survey processing in countries and areas represented.  The plans for the year 2000 round of censuses indicate that technologies used in earlier censuses are being upgraded in all countries.  However, certain well-tested methods from the past continue to be popular.  Read more details in the project Web site (<http://www.un.org/stat/pop-it/>) which includes papers presented in the meeting.

There is a clear trend away from using mainframe computers for census and survey processing.  Small countries are planning to store and process data in stand-alone or networked PCs, and larger ones are moving into client-server environments.  The prevalence of the year 2000 problem in mainframe environments has accelerated this trend.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) introduced several innovations in its latest census (1996).  Their 145 field managers were given PCs with a modem, which allowed them to work from their homes.  Secure connections were used for exchanging data, receiving instructions for the field staff, and for resolving ad hoc problems.  Another innovation was the use of GIS for Collection District design.   The third innovation was to use PC based coding for the fields that were not captured by Optical Mark Recognition/Reader (OMR) processing.  (OMR had been introduced already earlier, but the coding was done in a mainframe-based system.).  Tabulation and data dissemination facilities were also upgraded from the previous round (1991), with the introduction of Supercross as tabulation tool (replacing TPL), improvement of GIS-based data dissemination, and piloting of Internet data dissemination.  An information warehouse has been established to store data and metadata and make them easier to access. 

The next Australian census is likely to use imaging and Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technologies, which would reduce paper handling and  permit automatic coding, and consequently improve timeliness and reduce costs.  Internet would be used more extensively for the dissemination of results; also off-line products, such as those disseminated on CD-ROMs, would have browser-like user interfaces.

Household survey processing is being improved along similar lines: the mainframe system (SAS/TPL/PL1)  is being replaced with PC and client-server based databases, analytical and tabulation software (SAS/Supercross/SQLWindows client-server environment).  The use of computer assisted personal interviewing (CAPI) is increasing in survey enumeration.  Data are typically entered in OMR forms that are mailed back for scanning and processing.  Blaise software has proved very effective for population surveys as it enables in-field editing and reduces the time required to clean unit record data. Handheld devices and OCR are also being tested and becoming part of some surveys. 

Lotus Notes has been used for electronic mail, discussion databases and automation of many administrative systems (e.g., leave, acquisition, recruitment, staff movements, planning).  It is becoming more important for a range of statistical processes.  ABS has conducted successful pilot experiments that move parts of survey design activities, dispatch and control facilities and management information systems to Lotus Notes.   Because of its improved programmability, ABS is increasingly using Notes also for  traditional database application development.  Lotus Domino technology is used to make Notes databases available on the World Wide Web.

GIS have been used in survey and census planning, and in data dissemination.  CDATA is a CD-ROM product which contains a large volume of Census data, digital boundaries and base map data, combined with Mapping and Manipulation Software.  CDATA 96 uses MapInfo software package developed in a 32 bit Microsoft Windows environment.  The ABS experience shows that map-based social atlases and other products are selling very well.

The third census of Bangladesh was conducted in 1991 in which the full count of the population was based on a short OMR-questionnaire, while the sample census was based on a long non-OMR questionnaire.

For data processing, two OMR OPSCAN 21/75 were utilized in two shifts.  For the smooth functioning of the OMR machines, arrangements were made to ensure an environment with controlled humidity and temperature.  Procedures were established for the systematic processing of batches of questionnaire by "thana", checking of geo-codes, capture and transfer of data image for each batch from the OMR host computer to the micro-processing environment utilizing LAPLINK

The data captured through OMR was downloaded to tape and uploaded to the PC for further processing using IMPS.  With the help of a combination of mapping, data base and other software a miniature data back was created for 10 "zilas".

In the 1990 census, data entry was decentralized to provincial statistical offices (stand-alone PCs were used), which cut the processing time significantly and made it possible to announce major results six months after the census date.  However, the more complex sample data were still entered in the central office and in selected regional offices.  A  similar decentralized data entry strategy was used also in the 1995 Intercensal Population Survey, with the data entry programme prepared with Integrated System for Survey Analysis (ISSA).

Currently, the Central Bureau of Statistics is studying with the assistance from Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) the possibility of using imaging, OCR and OMR technologies in the next census (2000).  As for GIS, the CBS completed in 1997 the digitization of maps of administrative areas, with villages as the smallest unit.

Japan has been using OMR questionnaires since the 1975 census, and the technology has been enhanced in later rounds of censuses.  For the 1990 census, optical mark and image readers (OMIR) were developed, to capture hand written industry and occupation responses.  The upcoming census in 2000 is likely to see a departure from OMR and the use of OCR instead, since technical support for OMR equipment appears faltering.  OCR technology gives wider flexibility in questionnaire design, has less requirements for questionnaire paper quality, and yet allows the use of "drop-out" colour (colour that is not optically read) as guidance in the questionnaires.

In the1990 census, the Statistics Bureau introduced a GIS (Census Mapping System), which distinguishes two types of boundary areas.  They are "enumeration districts", which cover about 50 households on average, and "basic unit blocks" which are demarcations of clearly identifiable and permanent geographic objects, such as roads, rivers and railways.  The enumeration districts (totalling 881,000) are used as sampling units in various surveys.  The technology is particularly useful in distributing the response burden equally.  The basic unit block (n=1,742,000) on the other hand is the smallest unit in presenting small area statistics.

From the 1995 census onwards, GIS based small-area statistics become easier than before to use as the boundaries of basic unit blocks, the correspondence between them and area section names (cho-aza), and the geo-coordinates of the central points of the basic unit blocks are disseminated in electronic form to users.  The Statistics Bureau has taken steps to ensure that confidentiality requirements are met when it distributes small area statistics.  (Individual basic unit blocks have on average only 25 households, which does not allow statistics with very detailed breakdowns.)

Until recently census and survey data have been collected on questionnaires and entered manually.  In the 1996 Inter-Census, the Census and Statistics Department considered using OMR, but the idea was abandoned because of the lack of experience in using the technology and the relatively small gains achievable in processing a census for the relatively small population.  The traditional method of data entry, however, was improved by introducing CENTRY to develop the data entry program.  Traditional batch validation and data compilation programs, including COBOL and SAS code, were used for that census.  In 1998 the Census and Statistics Department migrated its applications to client-server (MS Windows NT) environment.

The requirement of printing publications in three languages (Chinese, Portuguese, English) is challenging, as Chinese characters need two bytes each in their digital presentation (requiring separate operating system and software), while certain software packages cannot handle all Portuguese characters correctly.

Census data processing has been decentralized since the 1990 census, first with stand-alone computers in regional offices, and from 1995 with LAN-connected PCs.  A nation-wide data communication network (NSOnet) with dial-up connections was used to transfer population counts to the central office.  In the next, year 2000 census, this transmission method is likely to be replaced by an Internet-based solution, and data entry will take place a step lower, at provincial offices.

The dissemination has been based on publications and files distributed on diskettes.  However, CD-ROMs and the Internet are emerging as future dissemination media.  The NSO is in the process of digitizing and improving the accuracy of small area maps, with plans to start using GIS systematically.

The Department of Statistics is very advanced in IT use, and it has ambitious plans to use high technology in its census in 2000.  The next issue of the Newsletter will feature some of the advanced technologies, presented to the Working Party in its second meeting in Singapore in April 1998.

The National Statistical Office (NSO) is planning to continue to use conventional enumeration questionnaires in the 2000 Population and Housing Census.  A short questionnaire will cover all population, and a longer one is to be used to collect detailed characteristics of a sample of the population.  The NSO is likely to enter data into PCs manually in provincial statistical offices, and then transfer data to the central office through its dedicated computer network.   It is hesitant to experiment with OMR and OCR technologies because of the fairly steep learning curve and overhead costs involved in their application.   Distributed data entry has been tested in the 1996 Industrial Census.  Main results will be published in hard copy publications and on the Internet, while more detailed information is expected to be made available on a CD-ROM.