Base de données IREDA

4. The scope of activity of IREDA


1. Geographical scope
The entire African continent, and the islands usually connected with it, are taken into account to establish the List of censuses and national surveys in Africa, a total of 58 countries and territories, which are listed below with their ISO codes:

BotswanabwaGhanaghaSaint Helenashn
Burkina FasobfaGuineaginSao Tome and Principestp
BurundibdiGuinea BissaugnbSenegalsen
Cape VerdecpvLesotholsoSierra Leonesle
Central African RepubliccafLiberialbrSomaliasom
ChadtcdLibyalbySouth Africazaf
ComoroscomMadagascarmdgSouth Sudanssd
Congo (Dem. Rep.)codMalimliTanzaniatza
Cote d’IvoirecivMauritaniamrtTogotgo
Equatorial GuineagnqMoroccomarWestern Saharaesh

The IREDA database, which is much more detailed, covers only twenty-three countries, mainly French-speaking sub-Saharan countries and Equatorial Guinea.

In each of these countries, priority was given to national operations, that is to say those concerning the whole territory and the whole population. In some cases, this ‘national’ character is obtained after grouping together several regional operations close in time; such cases are referred to as complex operations. As indicated elsewhere, some older localized operations from the 1950s and 1960s have also been taken into account because of their historical interest.

2. Temporal scope
This inventory starts from the end of the Second World War and therefore covers the statistical history of African countries. It ends at the end of 2019. Operations are only included once they have been carried out on the field.

3. Thematic scope
For censuses, these are population (and possibly housing or dwelling) censuses. The inventory includes the few censuses which were conducted on the field, but which were subsequently ‘cancelled’ or discontinued, usually for political reasons. Also included are some ‘administrative censuses’, which were used in some countries before the first ‘statistical census’, and which have been included here because they have been subject of a specific treatment (either at the level of the data collection on the field, or at the level of the data processing).

For the surveys, only household surveys providing demographic data in the traditional sense of the demographic analysis (state and/or movement data) were selected. Therefore, surveys on budget and consumption, living standards and conditions, labour force, knowledge, attitudes and practices (KAP surveys) on contraception or AIDS are not included in this list, unless these surveys also provide demographic data. ‘Sample censuses’ are included in the surveys.

The operations have been classified by type according to the classification given in the document ‘List of operations’.


Each demographic operation is accompanied by numerous online resources or resources which have been digitized whenever possible and when permission has been obtained. These resources obviously include official reports and technical documents, but also documents which may be less known, resulting from research work or student theses.

These resources are presented in the following order:
Official Publications
Official publications - analytical reports
Official publications - administrative and technical reports
Official publications containing only tables
Official publications which are quoted but not yet localized
Research publications
Publications on the progress of the operation, not published by the producer
Publications using the operation data (generally research work)
Student work - case studies, dissertations, theses, etc.
Technical documents
Data collection manuals
Technical notes
Codification and tabulation
Various technical documents
Images, posters, photos, etc
Websites possibly dedicated to the operation

Documents concerned with classic demographic aspects of the data have been emphasized, notably those found in journals in the field of demography, such as Population, Population and Development Review, etc., rather than on more medical works derived for example from the data of the Demographic and Health Surveys and published in medical reviews (listed in a variety of different databases, such as Pubmed).

Some simple criteria have been used to delimit the resources connected to a demographic operation: for example to include only those works simultaneously using the data of a maximum of three operations, the other documents being then included in the bibliography dedicated to the country.

Finally, broader bibliographies of relatively old documents concerned with demographic data collection are presented in the bibliographies tab. All publications of the "Groupe de Démographie Africaine" (GDA) have been digitized and put online.
eng-scope.pdf (154.42 Ko)
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