Kinshasa, August 18th, 2026 (CPA).- The works of the training-of-trainers session on census mapping have been launched during a ceremony on Tuesday in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, by the General Secretary of the Ministry in charge of Planning as part of the second general population and housing census. “The training session launched today places the full responsibility for field operations on your shoulders. The government expects you to ensure the success of the general population census; you are the face of this operation to our fellow citizens,” has declared Daniel Epembe, General Secretary at the Ministry in charge of Planning and representative of the Minister of State in charge of Planning and Development Aid. “That is why the same rigour that characterised your selection will be required during this training, as the quality of the census mapping results will depend largely on the quality of the work you carry out,” he has added. On this occasion, the representative of the Minister in charge of the Planning has specified that this general census is not merely a scientific exercise; it is an essential tool for understanding the Congolese population and enables the organisation of development planning and the direction of public policy to better meet potential needs in the areas of education, health, employment, housing, infrastructure and social protection.
85 trainers undergoing an 8-day training course
For his part, Henri Kazadi, technical coordinator of the Central Census Office (BCR), has explained that this first stage of training involves 85 trainers who will, in turn, train other trainers in various provinces of DRC. “The today’s session is for the group of trainer-trainers. Following this session, they will be called upon to train other enumerators as part of a cascade training approach. We are now embarking on this major undertaking in terms of fieldwork, the census process, through the mapping of the terrain,” has explained the BCR coordinator. He has also reminded us of the various stages in the implementation of this project, including the first decree establishing a general population and housing census in DRC, which has been signed in August 2009, and the second in 2011. On this occasion, the representative of the Minister in charge of the Planning has specified that this general census is not merely a scientific exercise; it is an essential tool for understanding the Congolese population and enables the organisation of development planning and the direction of public policy to better meet potential needs in the areas of education, health, employment, housing, infrastructure and social protection. It also involves sharing experiences with Brazil and Cape Verde on population censuses and conducting methodological trials in Kongo Central and Kinshasa. As part of the implementation of this programme, the government has launched an awareness-raising campaign last week targeting religious communities, notably the Protestant Church and the Islamic community, with a view to ensuring effective participation in the census across the whole of the country.ACP/