PNG census – Asia Pacific Report

Papua New Guinea’s population tops 10 million, census data reveals

APR editor — Tue, 04 Nov 2025 11:11:20 +0000

Papua New Guinea’s population has passed the 10 million mark, according to the final figures from the 2024 Population Census released by the country’s statistics office.

The PNG census began on 16 June 2024 and concluded in late October, more than three months after its original deadline. The process was marred by a host of administrative and logistical issues.

A PNG academic said in October 2024 that the 2024 Census, which included only six questions, failed to meet the United Nations benchmark standards for reliable census data.

READ MORE: Other PNG census reports

“Without timely and accurate census data, it will be impossible to create a reliable common roll or implement the planned biometric voting system by 2027 for the national election, which will require even greater coordination and efficiency,” wrote Michael Kabuni, a PhD student at the Australian National University and a former lecturer at the University of PNG.

The PNG National Statistical Office reported that there were 10,185,363 people in the country on census night.

According to the 2024 National Population Census Final Figures booklet, this represents a 40 percent increase compared with the previous population count in 2011, when the population was 7,275,324.

The report stated the average population annual growth rate since the 2011 Census was 2.6 percent.

“Annual growth rate since the 2011 Census is higher (3.1 percent) but is likely to be artificially inflated because of non-demographic factors such as higher undercounting in 2000 and improvements to the 2011 and 2024 Census coverage methods.”

The census figures also reveal that there are more males (5,336,546) than females (4,848,546), representing approximately 110 males for every 100 females.

The average household in PNG was five people.

“Since the first official census in 1980, five years after independence, there have been an additional 7.2 million people added from 3.0 million in the last 44 years.”

The census found that, of the 22 provinces that make up PNG, Morobe recorded the highest population with almost a million people, followed by the Eastern Highlands province with 800,072 people.

Of PNG’s four regions, Highlands account for 35.7 percent of the total population, followed by Momase (27 percent), then the Southern and Islands regions.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Plea to ‘uncounted’ PNG residents to call in as census winds down

APR editor — Tue, 23 Jul 2024 03:00:46 +0000

Port Moresby residents who have missed out on the Papua New Guinea’s national census counting have been urged to call the census call center on 1801676 to have themselves counted as part of the 2024 census “mop-up” exercise in NCD.

While the counting of the residents in the National Capital District (NCD) is almost complete, there have been complaints from most individuals that they have not yet been visited by enumerators.

With the census mop-up exercise to be concluded this week, the census team told Post-Courier Online that they had not been “getting a good response from the public”.

READ MORE: Other PNG census reports

The National Statistical Office, which responded to the progress of the mop-up phase of the count in NCD, said that many residents had phoned in to the census call center for counting.

“We are receiving some calls from good citizens from our call center,” a spokesperson said.

“NCD rushed the enumeration. Therefore, a few houses were missed.”

Census Call Center Agents are required to collect the following information as part of the mop-up exercise in NCD:

Name of Household head,
Caller’s address,
Contact number, and
Whether or not visited by the census enumerators.

This information will be compiled and passed to the Regional Census Coordinator for the mop-up exercise.

Bramo Tingkeo is a PNG Post-Courier reporter. Republished with permission.

PNG Post-Courier: Census fiasco – why the poor planning, poor vision?

APR editor — Tue, 18 Jun 2024 23:13:43 +0000

EDITORIAL: PNG Post-Courier

We support Count Me In 2024. It is an important national census event for Papua New Guinea. It is supported by the government. And the people support it too.

The National Census will provide us with up-to-date live data on our population which is needed for planning now and into the next decade.

However, we are amazed that despite the public holiday yesterday, which was announced by Prime Minister James Marape to allow the public servants to have the day off so they can be counted, has become a failure.

READ MORE: Other PNG National Census reports

PNG POST-COURIER

Why? Because most of the provinces including four heavily populated areas have yet to receive their full counting materials.

This amounts to poor planning, poor vision, and poor foresight on the part of the holiday-happy PM and his Administrative Minister Richard Masere.

They did not see that Count Me In is in for a long count when the material is late, training not completed, and the technology and gadgets don’t add up for this very important national event.

Meanwhile, taxpayers will pick up the cost of the extra holiday that Marape ubiquitously granted to his public servants yesterday.

Out in the field, members of the public noted that the tablets supplied for enumerators were not used. The counters were asked why. They responded that the tablets did not have the applications necessary for them to compile the information collated.

This is despite a K17 million (NZ$7 million) contract to Indian firm Max Industrials whose CEO Max Pandey said he has paid for and delivered 22,000 tablets to the National Statistical Office to carry out the work.

If the tablets were delivered, then why are these gadgets inoperable? What type of gadgets are these, where were these manufactured, were these tablets tested, and have they ever been used before in a census?

Are they from a recognised brand? This is a national census and we cannot afford to get it wrong. We have waited 14 years to hold this event.

It is therefore interesting to note that the contract for the supply of tablets was signed last week for a major event that started on Sunday this week.

Just like everybody, we are curious about this fiasco, why materials are late and tablets are not functioning?

The progress of events doesn’t make sense. Despite the Secretary for Finance and the Minister for Administrative Service giving their assurance that all processes were followed, it just does not add up.

We all want to be counted. We all want to be visible. We all want to be recognised as citizens of Papua New Guinea.

The population count has been outstanding since the last one in 2011. More babies have arrived, more heads, more mouths to feed in a country with rising costs of living, and extra turnover of migratory people of all walks of life, national and trans-national all over the country.

We hope that Count Me In will be concluded successfully, given the country’s rugged terrain and challenges, the far-flung coral islands and the lack of national road links.

We hope, we just hope we might all get numbered!

PNG Post-Courier editorial published 19 June 2024 under the headline “Counting fiasco”. Published with permission.

PNG will press ahead with vote next year in spite of setbacks, says Marape

APR editor — Sun, 15 Aug 2021 11:36:31 +0000

Asia Pacific Report newsdesk

Prime Minister James Marape has assured Papua New Guinea that the 2022 National General Election will go ahead as scheduled, reports the PNG Post-Courier.

He dismissed fears that the election will be deferred due to concerns over funding and the electoral roll, which is yet to be updated, with only seven months to go before the issue of writs.

“Do we have time? I concur that time is running out for us to work. We have seven months left before the writs are issued.

READ MORE: Other PNG elections stories

“We can squeeze a work program in by all sectors of government to ensure that we arrive in the 2022 election in June and July,” he said.

Marape said the update of the common roll or electoral roll was an important requirement to progress good elections in 2022.

He said the government is conscious about that and would ensure that adequate funding was secured to get all the necessary preparations for the elections in place.

“In the past we do have heavy census, heavy NID (national identification) exercises and heavy common roll updates that consume a lot of money.

For example, to do common roll updates, they come up with budgets of K200-K300 million (NZ$80-NZ$120 million), the NID exercise consumes K300-K400 (NZ$120-NZ$160 million) and the census also has a funding submission to that tune,” Marape said.

“We do not have the luxury of funds to conduct different census or common rolls.

“We are trying to do it in a cost efficient manner in which we get to know our population.

“We will a do headcount and from one population data we could migrate that into our census.

“In the September-October period, every district and province is informed to prepare to assist our ward members update the population of the 6000 wards that we have nationwide.”

Ward members can update baseline population headcount from household to household. They are are closest to the people.

“The PNGEC (PNG Electoral Commission) team, from this population data base, will verify those who are 18 years and above to be migrated to the common roll and that will take place in December, January, February and March, for the common roll verification and update,” Marape said.

“By April-May that data will be ready to be used for the election.”

He said this during question time when responding to questions from Esa’ala MP Davis Steven.