ABSTRACT
Good governance under a democratic dispensation must be data driven. Indeed, quality data from censuses and nationally representative sample surveys are key to decision making and developmental planning. The age-sex structure of a population is important both for demographic analysis and development planning. Research on such population dynamics as fertility, mortality, migration, nuptiality, and so on, utilizes the age-sex distribution as an indispensable tool. Similarly, in planning for educational programs, military recruitment, job creation, health facilities, and geopolitical considerations, accurate empirical statistics with respect to age and sex are of paramount importance. However, the literature is replete with problems associated with the collection of reliable age-sex data in the African context and has failed to address how errors in such data could be detected before use. Africa has benefited immensely from technical support to implement census-related activities from various development partners over several decades.
