“We have set out the main plans and we are in need of a massive budget to kick off the preparations in 2019,” Mahdi Allaq, secretary general of the Iraqi Council of Ministers, told Rudaw.
On Tuesday, he attended a planning meeting with the Kurdistan Region’s planning minister, and representatives from the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and several diplomatic missions.
"The Council of Ministers has allocated a good amount of money for the preparations, but the bigger budget will be earmarked in 2020,” said Allaq.
Iraq conducted seven censuses between 1934 and 1997. Its last survey, however, excluded the Kurdistan Region.
Accurate information about the population of the country is crucial for ministries to develop programmes and to resolve some issues between the regional and federal governments, primarily what portion of the national budget should be allocated to the Kurdistan Region based on its population.
KRG Planning Minister Ali Sindi said there is some resistance to the project, however.
"There is a misunderstanding about holding the process of a census as some Iraqi parties think that holding the census will harm them,” he said.
He stressed that the importance of the census “is not to resolve political issues,” but to provide accurate data for ministries so they can “function properly and make successful plans.”
The population of Iraq is estimated at over 39 million. The Kurdistan Region population is estimated to be 5.1 million.
The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in coordination with the International Organization for Migration (IOM) conducted a demographic survey of the Kurdistan Region this year.
