The essential functions of the Census Department are to carry out population and economic censuses, such as Population and Housing Census, Agricultural Census, and Establishment Census, etc. The Department also implements special-purpose censuses such as Civil Servant Censuses and School Censuses. The department keeps track with the administrative structure and divisions of Rwanda and records whatever official changes that may have been taken place (e.g. a rural area has been changed to urban, new community has been established or demolished, etc.). The Department is also in-charge of updating the business registry.

To accomplish its mission, the Census Department is headed by a director and is organized into two sections with the following:

Director (1)

Population Censuses Research Statistician Team (4):

  • Team Leader
  • Census Methodology Statistician (1)
  • Population Censuses Analysis Statistician (1)
  • Training & Field Operation Statistician (1)

Economic Censuses Statistician Team (5):

  • Team Leader
  • Agriculture Censuses Statistician (1)
  • Formal Sector Census Statistician (1)
  • Informal Sector Census Statistician (2)

Director of Censuses:

Mr Venant HABARUGIRA
Director of Censuses

Mr. HABARUGIRA Venant is the Director of Censuses Department, at the National Institute of Statistics of Rwanda (NISR) since November 2015 to date.

He holds a Master’s of Science in Data science, obtained from the University of Rwanda, African Center of Excellence in Data Science, College of Business and Economics, a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from the University of Rwanda, and a Post Graduate Diploma in Demography obtained from the Cairo Demographic Center (CDC-Egypt).

He has good experience in statistical works at the National Institute of Statistics of Rwanda (NISR) where he worked as statistician since October 2008 in the areas of health, education, Labour Statistics, fertility analysis, mortality analysis, population projections, demographic analysis, data quality evaluation, …demographic and social statistics and administrative Statistics.

During his time at NISR, he has been involved in the implementation of different statistical projects. He participated in the analysis for the 2007 Education’s Census;  implementation of 2008 VUP Baseline Survey, implementation of the Public Expenditure Tracking Survey (PETS), Analysis of Data for the District Baseline ; Design and Data collection for the Rwanda Statistical Year Book (2009 edition) ; Implementation of the fourth and fifth Rwanda Demographic and Health Surveys (RDHS-IV, 2010, RDHS-V, 2015), coordination, data analysis and report writing of the Rwanda Manpower Survey, 2011; implementation of the Enquête Intégrale sur les Conditions de Vie des ménages (EICV 4), Analysis of the 2012 Rwanda Population and Housing Census, analysis and National Technical coordinator of the 2022 Rwanda Population and Housing Census(planning, mapping, pilot census, main census enumeration and analysis).

Among other assignments include the analysis and report writing of the fifth Rwanda Demographic and Health Survey (RDHS-V, 2014-15); the implementation (coordination), analysis of the 2015 and 2018 Mortality Assessment Surveys, the implementation (coordination), analysis of the 2017 and 2020 Establishment Censuses, coordination of the Education Administrative Statistics.