Iraq's plans to take census raise controversy
The central government's plans to undertake a census late next year have raised the concerns of groups in multicultural Iraqi cities such as Kirkuk.
BAGHDAD — Iraq’s central government announced April 9 its intention to launch a comprehensive census in the country in late 2020. This constitutes the first step toward ending several chronic economic and political problems caused by a lack of accurate official statistics since 1997.
While there have been several previous attempts to take a comprehensive census, such attempts have failed to come to fruition either due to the lack of sufficient funding or because of the absence of a political consensus.
