Belize Tackles Census Data Gaps

Belize is stepping up efforts to improve how it counts and projects its population. This week, local demographers joined experts from seventeen Caribbean countries for a four-day workshop on population estimates and projections.

The training is designed to give governments the tools to make informed decisions in areas such as health, education, and employment.

“The discussion is going to look at looking at the population and the demographic in the countries. so using the data from the various countries to estimate population. To project population based on trends that are related to fertility, related to migration, and related to mortality,” Tisa Grant, Liaison Specialist at UNFPA in Belize, explained. “These three specific components make up what is called or would be a population policy.”

The initiative was supported by the Latin American and Caribbean Demographic Centre and funded by the Korea International Cooperation Agency. It began as a project to strengthen Belize’s data systems but later expanded to benefit the region.

The workshop combines theory with hands-on training, aimed at building regional expertise and collaboration.

CEO in the Ministry of Economic Transformation, Carlos Pol, added, “For us to make informed decisions, we need statistics, and not just statistics, but we need accurate and reliable and timely statistics.”