Parliamentary social service committee rebuffs UNFPA’s population estimation survey
The secretary general of parliamentary committee of social services Abdullahi Omar Abshir described 2014 population estimation survey conducted by UNFPA recently as underestimated figure, mistaken and far from truth.
The MP, Mr. Abshirrow said Somali people are currently more than the estimated number of 12,316,985 people.
Mr. Abshirrow stated that no accurate population estimation survey can be collected in the country due to challenges like security and lack of trained personnel.
The MP said the statistics made by the agency lacks accuracy as they used aerial survey and mobiles instead of using head counts.
He stated that the committee had full information about the study but they shocked with the final results issued by UN.
The last population census was done in 1985/86, but no data was released. Only a few data were released from the earlier census conducted in 1975.
A settlement survey was done by United Nations Development Program back in 2005/06, but the Somali administration came out against it, because they felt that their population had been underestimated. Nevertheless, those data has been used as a framework for designing surveys until now according to UNFPA Somalia.