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Overview
Population Statistics CODs are the baseline population figures of a country's pre-crisis situation. To effectively allocate resources and efficiently channel assistance to those who need it most, information about the size, location, and demographic profile of the population is fundamental. This requires information about the likely age-/sex-profile of the population in a given geographic area.
Population statistics are required to inform programming in humanitarian response. Specifically, they are used:
- to estimate the potential number of affected people both by OCHA but also by all partners (UN and NGOs) who are responding.
- to plan emergency assistance to pregnant women in areas affected by a crisis.
- as a basis for another of the three core CODs: the Humanitarian Profile COD.
- as a reference/resource in the development of needs assessments and in the analysis.
- as a framework for data collection.
- use to gain an understanding of population breakdown (sex and age) to prepare and respond appropriately.
Process
In 2018,
UNFPA and OCHA released a partnership agreement on CODs leveraging UNFPA's vast population expertise and strong relationship with national statistics offices in many countries. As per the agreement, UNFPA Regional Offices together with HQ and CO colleagues will identify the best-available sex-and-age disaggregated dataset for each country and discuss their findings with OCHA's IM at the Regional (and country) level. The agreed dataset is then presented to the IMWG/IM network for further validation and adoption. If adopted, the dataset becomes the official COD-PS for a particular country. In most cases, the COD-PS will be publicly available at HDX. However, sensitive COD-PS will have customized access levels. The IM network should include representative(s) from UNFPA, if this is not possible, UNFPA should always be consulted in regards to the population statistics COD.
For countries with unavailable (or outdated) population projections, UNFPA will develop a model to estimate population projections. The model's methodology will be thoroughly documented and presented to the IMWG/ IM network.