Statistics Alive
Statement to Parliament by the Minister in the Presidency, Trevor Manuel on Census 2011 2011-09-20 Census 2011, that now-once-in-a-decade event is upon us. The countdown has begun in earnest; Census 2011 is a mere 20 days away! Stats SA has done all the necessary preparations. Some 156 000 enumerators, coordinators and supervisors have been recruited and trained; these fieldworkers have gone out, armed with clipboards to list every dwelling in the country; questionnaires have been prepared, printed and distributed along with other census materials; 130 offices have been rented and equipped and 6 000 vehicles hired, advertisements have been placed and pilots and dress rehearsals have been conducted. The preparations already completed speak to the scale of the operation, the largest deployment of people in peacetime in our country. Read more... The head of the nation's count 2011-09-16 Pali Lehohla is 53 years, 11 months and six days old. That's the type of exact response you get when you ask South Africa's first statistician general a question. This is a man who lives and breathes data and statistics. Appointed in 2000, Lehohla heads up Statistics South Africa (Stats SA), the country's statistical agency. "The organisation provides official statistics through which the state and the private sector can identify issues, plan programmes that address them, monitor implementation and, in the case of the state, monitor the impact on society," said Lehohla. Read more... SA's high youth unemployment rate has 'worryingly significant implications' for the country's future - BHP Billiton 2011-09-16 The number of unemployed young South Africans has worryingly significant implications for the future of this country. Speaking at the Skills Development Summit, hosted by the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, in Pretoria last week, mining giant BHP Billiton director and VP for commun- ications and external affairs Johnny Dladla said that, by pulling together, the country would be able to find solutions in key areas of the economy and overcome a number of significant obstacles it was facing. Read more... Substantial drop in child mortality around the globe, UN figures reveal 2011-09-15 The number of young children who die each day has plunged over the past two decades, new United Nations figures show, but the world is still lagging far behind in efforts to achieve its target for reducing child mortality. The latest estimates, issued by the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the UN World Health Organization (WHO), indicate that the number of children under the age of five who perish each year fell from more than 12 million in 1990 to about 7.6 million last year. Read more... Census 2011 'to count almost every person' 2011-09-13 STATISTICS SA has made assurances that this year's census will be the most comprehensive yet, and will offer unprecedented amounts of data to implement government policies. Questions have been raised over the cost-effectiveness of this year's census over its R3bn price tag and the 17% undercount in 2001. Read more...
	News compiled by Richard Humphries