In Summary:
- Samuel Dean, Executive Director of the National Commission on Disabilities, claimed that the 2008 National Census report shows that the percentage of people living with disabilities (PWDs) is 16.5%
- He also claimed that the 2022 census shows that PWDs are 2% of the country’s population.
- We have verified the claims and found that he did not get all the facts right.
On November 14, the Executive Director of the National Commission on Disabilities claimed during a Ministry of Information Culture Affairs and Tourism press briefing that the 2008 census by Liberia Institute of Geo-Information Services (LIGIS) reported that 16.5% of Liberia’s population are persons living with disabilities (PWDs), while the 2022 census reduced this figure to 2%.
Mr. Samuel Dean made the assertion at the 45th minute of the nearly one hour thirty minutes video while disclosing that the Commission has planned to conduct an independent enumeration exercise of all PWDs in the country. He expressed concern about the contradictions between the two census statistics.
He disclosed that a gap analysis by the Commission shows that the 2022 census did not disaggregate the population of PWDs by gender, age, employment, residence, and types of disability, among others.
Claim
Said Mr. Dean: “In 2008 LISGIS put PWDs at 16.5% of the then 3.5 million population; in 2022 they said we are now at just 2%, we did a gap analysis, and it depicts that the 2% is not enough you have to disaggregate the data into sex, employment, localities and more”.
Watch the claim here:
Rating Justification
To fact-check this claim, we contacted Mr. Sameul Dean through text asking about the 2008 census report he cited. He sent us a link to a 2021 article on disability and poverty in Liberia published by The Borgen Project.
The article quotes statistics from a publication on the African Disability Rights Yearbook which cites data from a 1997 UNICEF study that says 16% of Liberia population has disabilities”.
We also reviewed LISGIS reports published on its website. The 2008 census data, available on the LISGIS website is the preliminary report which does not contain data on people with disabilities.
Further search reveals the 2008 census atlas on the Library of Congress website, and defines PWDs as “those who were at greater risk of experiencing restrictions in performing specific tasks or participating in daily activities”.
The report did not specify a percentage of people living with disabilities but cites disability statistics by gender and location.
Meanwhile, the LISGIS 2022 census report, released in June 2023 states that the population of PWDs increased from 2.1% in 2008 to 2.2% in 2022.
However, LISGIS’ official website states that the report is under review and that the final report will be released after validation.
LIGIS provides highlights of 15 thematic areas the census covered, its thematic summary on persons with disability indicates that 11.4% of the population aged 5 and above have varying degrees of disability in 2022 from 3.2% in the 2008 census.
The summary shows that 8.7% have some form of disability, and 2.7% have severe disabilities.
Conclusion
Based on these findings, we conclude that Dean’s claim that the 2008 census conducted by LISGIS reported 16.5% of Liberia’s population as persons with disabilities is incorrect. The data he relies on to make this claim is a 1997 UNICEF study and not LISGIS 2008 census report
While he is mostly correct that the 2022 figure is 2%, the final census report is still under review, and the detailed summary suggests higher percentages for different disability categories.
