The Prime Minister’s decree published last July 31 explains the extension of the deadline by the need to complete the enumeration.
For the second time, the Cameroonian government postpones the deadline for the end of operations related to the 4th General Census of Population and Housing, coupled with the General Census of Agriculture and Livestock. By decree, the Prime Minister grants an additional period. It runs from August 1, 2026, to September 15, 2026. During this period, the aim is to strengthen the coverage of households, individuals, and agricultural holdings throughout the national territory.
The census teams are thus responsible for completing the full identification of all households not yet identified; searching for and enumerating households, individuals, and agricultural holdings not yet counted; verifying the validation of complete geographic coverage; identifying communication and awareness actions to increase population adherence to the operations; implementing the necessary measures to complete the operations.
The directives aim to meet the challenge that the operations could not meet during the initial 35-day period which ended on May 29, 2026, and was extended until July 31, 2026. During this period, the operations could only cover about 60% of the total population. The data thus present a gap to be filled of 40% of the population.
During the two elapsed periods, field actions were hampered by strikes of census agents motivated by non-payment of their allowances. This itself is a sign of insufficient financial resources made available to carry out the operations to completion. The initial budget amounted to 13.2 billion CFA francs, funded with 7 billion CFA francs by the World Bank and 6.2 billion CFA francs by the State of Cameroon. Following a release last June of an additional amount of 6 billion then 4 billion CFA francs, the budget increases and reaches 23.5 billion CFA francs.
In his decree of last July 31, the Prime Minister insists on collective action involving administrative authorities, municipalities, and census agents in the field. Ultimately, the ambition is to correct the shortcomings that led to the first two failures to achieve an update of the census data available and nearly 22 years old.