About Pan-African Census Explorer (PACE)

The Pan-African Census Explorer

Our close working relationship with various African governments, scholars, and institutions, has allowed us not only to build a unique collection of African censuses but also to develop a platform for making African census data available and accessible to scholars, international agencies and researchers. The analysis of census data requires large disk space for storage and substantial memory for analysis. These data are one of the most important sources of population data in Africa. The Pan-African Census Explorer (PACE) puts together the necessary computer technology to produce a user-friendly environment for both researchers and Bureaus of Census officials. Country specific versions of PACE are available to government agencies to facilitate easy distribution and analysis. PACE consists of three interfaces: CENSUS NAVIGATOR, CENSUS GUIDE and CENSUS EXPLORER.

Data access

In collaboration with our African partners, ACAP is focused on analyzing census data and the further enhancement of PACE. ACAP is currently developing its data access protocol.    

You must first register in order to use PACE.

3 Degrees of PACE Access

The Census Navigator

The first interface, CENSUS NAVIGATOR, assists users in obtaining general information on African census data. In order to facilitate the analysis of all censuses, general information on each census is being added to the Census Navigator. The Census Navigator provides standard tables and documentation on each data set. The final version of the Census Navigator will include:

• Census Questionnaires
• Codebooks;
• Reports on data quality;
• Technical publications by Bureau of census;
• List of variables collected with frequency distributions ;
• Some basic indicators;
• Contact in the country for additional information;

The Census Guide

The second interface, CENSUS GUIDE, allows users to take full advantage of PACE data processing and analytics development. The Census Guide provides access to the grouped census data for dynamic queries and predefined analysis. The Census Guide will allow the user to produce output in form of tables, graphs, and maps.
Most of the data have already been put into the appropriate format; we are still in the process of making this level of access to the data publicly available on the web. Eventually this will be set up with various levels of access with user authentication.

The Census Explorer

Many researchers are interested in having the ability to manipulate the data in unique ways. These high-end users are primarily interested in the third component of PACE, CENSUS EXPLORER. Census Explorer allows for maximum flexibility while taking advantage of PACE data processing (standard data and meta-data).  The Census Explorer allows users to have access to the census micro-data for dynamic query to produce subsets of the data, export data to multiple file types, run specific analysis and produce output in the form of tables, figures or maps. It provides access to all of the functionality of the Census Navigator and the Census Guide as well as full flexibility for specific in-depth analysis by designated researchers.

User authentication and strict access control is required to ensure that the custodial mission of ACAP is not compromised. Consequently, this phase of the project—providing internet-based access to the micro data—requires substantial investment in material, human and financial resources.