Deputy Speaker of the Council of Representatives Dr. Shakhawan Abdullah chairs the awareness seminar to introduce the General Population and Housing Census Project 2024.

Deputy Speaker of the Iraqi Council of Representatives Dr. Shakhawan Abdullah Ahmed chaired the awareness seminar to introduce the General Population and Housing Census Project 2024, for the Strategic Planning and Federal Parliamentary Service Committee, in cooperation with the Statistics and Geographic Information Systems Authority in the federal government, and in the presence of ladies and gentlemen representatives and a delegation from the Statistics Authority in the Kurdistan Region and a number of experts and those interested in the field of population statistics, which was held today, Tuesday 1/10/2024 in Al-Shabibi Hall, and in his speech, His Sovereignty pointed out the importance of the project and the need to draw a roadmap and policies to implement sustainable development projects, and the necessity of recording the size of the available resources and sources and capabilities to continue working and building the future with accurate numbers and information and the population census that will serve the entire society.

The Deputy Speaker added, “We are fully aware of the importance of statistics to calculate population density and obtain detailed information related to the population and record it in a modern and systematic scientific manner in the national census operations. There is no doubt that the data and statistics that will be collected will certainly help in making future decisions and increasing planning for economic and social development and the better distribution of government funds in the field of education, health and basic services.” Dr. Shakhawan Abdullah stressed the need to take into account the problems, political events, changes and military wars that have occurred in Iraq for many years, the last of which was against the terrorist organization ISIS. All of these have affected the reality of society. A demographic change has occurred in many areas, and there have been forced displacements and migrations of citizens between governorates, in addition to the presence of more than two million displaced persons and migrants in the Kurdistan Region and the rest of Iraq. His Sovereignty called on the Ministry of Planning and all institutions and bodies in the federal government concerned with the census issue to address the problems and carefully review previous statistics before implementing the population census project to ensure accurate data is recorded for citizens based on their original regions and governorates to protect the rights of all people.

Media Office of the Deputy Speaker of the Iraqi Council of Representatives

1 October 2024