By Doh James Sonkey
The government of Cameroon has urged media professionals in the country to activate citizens to open up their homes and give census agents all necessary information for a better planning of the national territory. The call was made by Communication Minister, Rene Emmanuel Sadi who doubles as Government Spokesperson, last April 29, 2026 during a joint press conference granted alongside the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Gabriel Mbairobe and the Minister of Livestock Fisheries and Animal Industries, Dr Taiga on the 4th population, housing, agriculture and livestock census taking place in Cameroon from April 24 to May 29, 2026.
Communication Minister disclosed that, “more than FCFA 13.28 billion has been allocated to this segment of the programme and out of this the World Bank alone is allocating FCFA 7 billion.”
Minister René Sadi revealed that government has taken institutional, security, massive communication measures to ensure that the census goes on hitch free. Cameroon therefore is finally counting its citizens 25 years after thanks to World Bank’s FCFA 7 billion support because the Minister explained that government had a lot of priorities to attain to than to allocate huge sums to organise the general census though important for appropriate planning.
The Minister reminded citizens that ‘‘since independence in 1960, Cameroon has conducted three General Population and Housing Censuses, in 1976, 1987 and 2005. These censuses have provided our country with statistical data on the various quantitative and qualitative characteristics of the population. As a matter of fact, the only censuses conducted for Livestock and Agriculture date back to 1976 and 1984 respectively. These data have since then enabled Cameroon to steer up its development policies, setting our country firmly on the path to progress and emergence.’’
On September 15, 2015, President Paul Biya signed a decree instituting the 4th national census whose toll-free number 8585 has been launched to address citizens’ concerns.
The Director-General of the Central Bureau of Census and Population Studies (BUCREP), Bernadette Francoise Mbarga elaborated at the press conference that, “we are going to do the census with smartphones. And the smartphones automatically collect the information; once the agent has finished collecting information on two or three households, he communicates this information to his team leader. The team leader collects the information of two or three census agents and he communicates this information directly to the central office here in Yaoundé”, she detailed.
She disclosed that, ‘‘unlike the previous census that took two years to get the results, we have to wait at least five months. I say five months because the information is much more political than technical.’’
The BUCREP boss reassured there will be no problem with salary as the World Bank is taking care of that aspect.