The Democratic Republic of Congo, like many African countries, is seeking to better organize its population identification system. With a view to pooling the census, enrollment and identification operations of the population, the Independent National Electoral Commission signed a memorandum of understanding providing for the transfer of the electoral register, the enrollment system, the cartographic data and the collection material at the National Population Identification Office and the National Institute of Statistics. This initiative is part of the government’s action program for population counts and electoral and institutional reforms.
The transfer of data not only allows ONIP to continue its activities of identifying the population and producing the national identity card, but also the National Institute of Statistics to carry out census activities. This decision fills the gaps in a scientific population census that dates back to 1984.
The city-province of Kinshasa will be the first province to benefit from this population identification operation. ONIP, using the same equipment as that of the Independent National Electoral Commission, will proceed with the official launches of the operation.
This initiative also has important consequences for future elections. Indeed, the distribution of seats in the deliberative assemblies will no longer be based on electoral statistics resulting from enrollment but on the actual demographic weight of each entity. This reform is crucial to ensure fairness in the political representation of all Congolese citizens.
In short, this initiative is a big step forward for the modernization of the population identification and census system in the Democratic Republic of Congo. It will also ensure fair representation of all citizens in governance bodies.