Nature of Activities:                         
Provision of technical, financial and logistics support to the Population Census Organization to upgrade their existing GIS Labs at federal and provincial levels.
Purpose:
The purpose of this project is to upgrade the existing PCO GIS labs and to enhance knowledge/skills of the GIS staff in geo-referencing the whole country at lower geographical levels & maintain geo-databases to support the forthcoming census of Pakistan and the dissemination of census results for the development of policies and programs.    The census data and geo-databases could also be utilized for the purpose of extracting information for UN-HABITAT Urban Observatories.
Strategy:
This project has been designed for two years starting in February 2011 and to be completed in 2012. UNFPA will provide financial support to UN-HABITAT for 2011 for the implementation of project activities. UN-HABITAT will be responsible for developing technical capacity of the PCO in using geospatial techniques and to establish a complete web-based GIS setup at Islamabad PCO GIS Lab and will access across the country.
Expected outcome:
By 2012, the Population Census organization capacity strengthened to digitize and geo-reference the whole country at lower geographical levels.

Activities:
Upgrade existing GIS labs of the Population Census Offices at Federal and Provincial levels
Procurement of latest GIS equipment to meet unmet needs of the GIS Labs
Introduce advanced GIS Software i.e. ArcGIS Server & Desktop, GeoClip Web Server   and Antivirus application
Developing of GIS Training strategy and manuals
Full-time technical support to enhance knowledge/skills of the GIS staff
Planned and need-based training on the use of GIS and Advanced spatial analysis techniques
Develop and customize GIS spatial datasets of Pakistan with major Spatial layers required for censuses and surveys
Integrate Census data into Geo-Database for thematic mapping
Support PCO in the preparation of layout designs and formulation techniques
Technical support to the PCO   in generating Map Catalogue for Census Data
Technical support to the PCO in the preparation of Compact disks containing Maps for data dissemination
Any additional essential technical support required/requested by the PCO for GIS Labs