Evaluation of the POPSTAN program, carried out by the US Bureau for the Census

Bureau of the Census (BuCen) POPSTAN project to help LDC's implement the 1980 round of censuses. Special evaluation, prepared under project 9365900, covers the period 1978-82 and is based on document review, site visits with national officials and workshop participants, and interviews with staffs of BuCen, A.I.D., the UN Statistical Office, and the East-West Population Institute. Implementation has been good, but could be improved. Of the 2,000 copies each of 7 POPSTAN and 2 mapping manuals developed, two-thirds were distributed in LDC's; these, especially the mapping manuals, were well received and were used for both training and reference purposes. However, preparation of the volumes took longer than expected because it took 2 years to develop a new outline that minimized repetition and compartmentalization and to develop a questionnaire acceptable to all parties. As a result, the materials were not ready for 1980 census activities in many countries, although all but Volume F of the English-language versions were completed by 1981. Despite some inadequacies, e.g., need for more LDC specificity, only selected parts of the materials need updating for the 1990 census round. BUCEN provided training for the 1980 census to a total of 289 LDC participants from 39 countries in workshops, mostly regional in nature, on POPSTAN, mapping materials, and specialized topics. In most cases (80%), workshops were held in time to be of help in the 1980 census, although a third of the African participants and 9 of the 10 Near East participants attended the workshops after their country's census. BUCEN staff for the workshops were generally good, although improvement is needed in the special topics workshops, especially in the area of LDC census data analysis. Indepth studies of workshops in Sierra Leone and the Philippines revealed several organizational problems, in particular the need to plan workshops, especially those in Africa, where project resources are wisely concentrated, in advance. Key recommendations are that BuCen improve both training materials and workshops; implement workshops in close collaboration with other groups, both within and without the Bureau, that provide census-related training; and improve budget planning and scheduling.