Rush hour in Santiago, Chile's national capital. The Santiago Metropolitan Region is home to more than 7.4 million people. / Photo: Shutterstock
A national population and housing census provides essential data on a country’s people and living conditions, informing evidence-based policymaking, resource allocation, and development planning across all sectors. It is the most complex statistical and logistical undertaking a country can face. Its operational stages and associated statistical processes are interconnected, and if one does not go well, knock-on effects can ripple the whole operation, so every piece must fall into place.
Active preparations typically begin at least three years ahead, encompassing everything from hiring and training enumerators to designing satellite-based maps and arranging transportation logistics. Simultaneously, planners need to develop technology for real-time data collection, create robust questionnaires, and engage communities through outreach campaigns.
As millions of interviews are conducted, and billions of data points are generated, supervisors must closely oversee fieldwork and ensure high data quality. After enumeration, data are rigorously cleaned and validated to produce comprehensive statistics that inform national policies.
Chile’s National Institute of Statistics (INE) has been releasing the results of the 2024 National Population and Housing Census since March 2025, which was a technological milestone for the country. In an innovative shift, the census data was mainly collected through computer-assisted personal interviews (CAPI), using mobile devices equipped with Survey Solutions, a free software developed by the World Bank for designing, implementing, and managing censuses and surveys.
The adoption of Survey Solutions is a perfect example of how a national statistical office can leverage sophisticated and modern tools to improve data quality and operational efficiency.
A multi-year collaboration to modernize the census
The digital transition that has contributed to the modernization of Chile’s national statistical system has been the result of a five-year strong partnership between INE and the World Bank.
The Survey Solutions team, which is part of the World Bank’s Survey Unit, in partnership with the World Bank Poverty and Equity Global Practice, provided technical support throughout the process, and collaborated closely with INE’s specialists at every stage, to ensure the optimal functioning of the platform and meet the requirements of the census according to Chile’s operational framework.
INE invested heavily in mastering Survey Solutions and building the infrastructure to support an operation of remarkable scale. By the time fieldwork kicked off, in March 2024, INE’s team was well prepared to run the census. Part of its success is connected to the commitment of those conducting the process, their engagement, and proactivity.
More than 25,000 census enumerators were deployed across the country, which stretches 4,300 kilometers from north to south. This vast operation was supported by a coordinated hierarchy of supervisors, regional coordinators, and IT specialists.
94 percent of those enumerated responded via in-person interviews using mobile devices, and 6 percent completed the census online. The national response rate reached 95 percent, with a rejection rate of just 0.9 percent.
The use of the Survey Solutions platform turned each enumerator’s tablet into a dynamic and interactive census questionnaire. It guided enumerators through the interview with automatic skip patterns and validation checks, which meant they no longer had to worry about accidentally skipping questions or making calculation errors. The software’s built-in logic managed the complex intricacies of millions of interviews, significantly improving data quality.
Survey Solutions’ features proved crucial in the successful implementation of Chile’s 2024 census:
Real-time data transmission. Field staff could periodically synchronize their tablets via Wi-Fi or mobile networks, uploading completed interviews to INE’s central server, and downloading new assignments. This allowed INE to monitor progress daily and provide timely support to field teams.?
Advanced mapping tools. Digital mapping tools integrated with the Survey Solutions system tackled geographical challenges by equipping enumerators tablets with detailed online and offline maps that used satellite imagery and GPS tracking.?
Customized integrations. Implementing a digital census at national scale required INE not only to use Survey Solutions out-of-the-box, but to integrate it deeply with its own IT systems — a strategic investment Chile pursued vigorously. INE built customed integrations to connect the census data collection system with internal dashboards that tracked response rates and key indicators in real time.
Robust data security and privacy features. INE took measures to ensure that, even with the use of World Bank software, all census data stayed within INE’s secure IT infrastructure. The Survey Solutions server for the census was deployed on a cloud environment under INE’s control, with robust firewalls and encryption. Enumerators’ tablets were configured to synchronize only with INE’s designated server address, and the census application was accessible only to authorized census staff.
Looking into the future
The experience gained by INE setting up a digital environment for its census, building electronic questionnaires, and conducting computer-assisted interviews will be invaluable for future data collection operations, including nationally representative surveys and other types of censuses.
In addition, Chile’s experience underscores the increasing global shift toward digital tools for national data collection.
Survey Solutions has successfully facilitated population censuses and surveys of households, firms, and facilities worldwide. The platform was used in population censuses in Vanuatu (2020), Barbados (2021), Marshall Islands (2021), Tonga (2021), Maldives (2022), Saint Lucia (2022), Kyrgyz Republic (2022), Bahamas (2022) and Romania (2022), among other countries. Currently, the World Bank’s Survey Unit alone is supporting 37 countries across the globe in the implementation of surveys using Survey Solutions.
As more countries modernize their statistical systems, the World Bank remains committed to strengthening the platform’s functionalities, supporting national statistical offices — including Chile’s INE — to develop robust, efficient, and secure census operations tailored to today’s evolving needs.??
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