SARAJEVO (Bosnia and Herzegovina), October 12 (SeeNews) – The International Monitoring Operation (IMO), mandated to monitor the compliance of Bosnia's first post-war census, said on Wednesday that the results of the 2013 census are valid, despite slight deviations, and were derived in accordance with international standards.
"Although the pressure and resulting discussions on the questions and enumeration data on ethnicity, religion and mother tongue had an impact on the management of the operations, the census results are in general considered valid and useful for economic and social policy planning, which is a key objective of censuses around the world", IMO said in a statement sent to SeeNews.
When it comes to claims that 200,000 people included in the census actually live abroad, IMO underlined that a census is a statistical operation, and as such the data obtained through the census are associated with a certain degree of accuracy, as is the case with all statistics.
"In this context, the indicator "Net coverage" which is calculated on the basis of the census data itself and the Post Enumeration Survey is a commonly known indicator used to evaluate the accuracy of census results. The net over count for the census in BiH of about 4.6 per cent is within the usual range of census results recorded in other countries", IMO said.
It noted that, in view of future censuses, stronger institutional cooperation would contribute to a more efficient management of the census process. IMO also added "that given the optional character of some sensitive questions and their potential impacts on the census processes, Bosnia and Herzegovina could reconsider using these results, and the relevance and value of collecting such data through future censuses".
The results of the country's first census, released three years after the count was conducted, showed that Bosnia's population had shrunk by 19.3% to 3.53 million in 22 years.
The publication of the census results - on which the EU repeatedly insisted - was delayed over methodological disagreements with the bureau for statistics of one of Bosnia's autonomous entities, the Serb Republic.
The feud is still ongoing, with the Serb Republic expected to release its own census results in the near future. Its political leadership said earlier that they will not accept the "illegal and harmful" method used for census data processing.
Bosnia is made up of two autonomous entities - the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Serb Republic - and a neutral, self-governing administrative unit, the Brcko District.
According to the results, 62.85% of Bosnia's population resides in the larger entity - the Federation, 34.79% lives in the Serb Republic, and 2.4% resides in the Brcko District.
As much as 50.11% of the total population declared themselves Bosniaks, 30.78% identified themselves as Serbs and 15.43% as Croats.
Bosnia's previous census was conducted prior to the declaration of independence from Yugoslavia in 1991. Back then, 43.47% of people declared themselves as Muslims by nationality, 31.21% as Serbs, 17.38% as Croats and 5.54% as Yugoslavians.
The IMO was established in September 2009 by the European Commission with representatives from Eurostat, chairing the IMO Management Group, European Commission Directorate-General NEAR, Council of Europe (CoE), United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD), United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) and United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).