DR Congo prepares first national census in 42 years to register citizens

The Democratic Republic of the Congo plans to carry out its first census since 1984, starting with a digital mapping operation that will identify all settled locations across the country's 2.3 million square kilometres. Teams equipped with tablets and smartphones will later collect household information, aiming to produce accurate population figures for public-service planning and to facilitate the issuance of national identity cards to residents who have never been recorded, such as Heritier Ramazani and Gedeon Katembo in Bunia.

Ongoing armed conflict and large-scale displacement in the east, especially in Ituri province, threaten to limit coverage, according to activist Muyisa Hangi Christophe. While the government portrays the exercise as a routine statistical task, opposition figures like Prince Bitaki and some civil-society groups fear the data could be used for political advantage ahead of the 2028 elections. Technical coordination is led by Henri Marie Kazadi of the Central Census Office within the National Institute of Statistics, under the Ministry of Planning.