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Census of Business Establishments, 2009/10.

Uganda, 2010 - 2011
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Reference ID
DDI-UGA-UBOS-COBE-2010-v01
Producer(s)
Uganda Breau of statistics
Metadata
DDI/XML JSON
Created on
Nov 27, 2025
Last modified
Nov 27, 2025
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  • Study Description
  • Data Description
  • Downloads
  • Identification
  • Scope
  • Coverage
  • Producers and sponsors
  • Sampling
  • Data Collection
  • Questionnaires
  • Data Processing
  • Access policy
  • Metadata production

Identification

Survey ID Number
DDI-UGA-UBOS-COBE-2010-v01
Title
Census of Business Establishments, 2009/10.
Country
Name Country code
Uganda UGA
Abstract
Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS) under the provisions in the UBOS Act, 1998, is mandated to maintain and update a Business Register for the country. Since 2000, UBOS has undertaken two updates of the Business Register. The first one was conducted in the period 2001/02 followed by the 2006/07 update. Recently, UBOS conducted the 2010/11 Census of Business Establishments (COBE) which was a comprehensive business census following the one held in 2001/02. The main objective of a COBE is to provide data necessary for understanding the current structure of businesses in the economy and to generate a sampling frame for the Uganda Business Inquiry and the specific objectives of the 2010/11 census were to: • Establish the number and size of business establishments operating in the different economic sectors in the country; • Establish the employment levels disaggregated by sex and ownership of business establishments (by legal status, sex, and nationality); • Establish the geographical spread of the business establishments by district; and • Establish the status of ownership of computers and use of both computers and internet.
The COBE was undertaken with funding from the World Bank-DFID Partnership Trust Fund and the Government of Uganda; the Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS) is grateful to both parties for this support. Finally, we are grateful to the Business Proprietors for providing us with the required data and to local government officials for the guidance they provided to the staff during the census. We look forward to yet even greater cooperation during the conduct of the 2011 Uganda Business Inquiry.
UBOS in collaboration with the World Bank undertook the Census of Business Establishments in 2010 and 2011 under the project code-named Firm Survey Data Generation. It was the most comprehensive Census of Businesses undertaken since the one undertaken in 2001/02. The delay in undertaking another census was mainly due to funding limitations.
OBJECTIVES OF THE 2010/11 COBE:
The main objective of the 2010/11 COBE was to obtain a complete listing of all businesses operating in the country with a fixed location. The specific objectives included: • Obtain the spread of businesses by economic activity • Determine the employment in businesses by Sex • Determine the Ownership Status of Businesses • Determine the location of businesses in the country • Determine the age of businesses and status of computer use and ownership.
ACTIVITY CLASSIFICATION:
Like in the earlier COBE, classification of industries was according to the United Nations International Standard Industrial Classification of Economic Activities (ISIC) and this time round the activities were classified in ISIC Revision 4.2 However, in order to be able to indicate the importance of certain key economic activities in Uganda, which would otherwise be impossible to scrutinize under the general ISIC codes, it was deemed necessary to assign special local codes to such activities. This was done within the framework of ISIC Rev4.
Kind of Data
Census/enumeration data [cen]
Unit of Analysis
The unit of analysis was business establishments

Scope

Notes
The scope of the multiple indicator census survey includes:
BUSINESS ESTABLISHMENTS: Business characteristics, Distribution of business by industry, distribution of industry by region, employment, annual turnover of business, owerniship, membership to association, enterprises of businesses age of business, and nationality of business owners.

Coverage

Geographic Coverage
National coverage.
Universe
The census covered all the business establishments in all industrial sectors: Forestry, Fishing, Mining & Quarrying, Food Processing, Other Manufacturing, Utilities, Construction, Trade, Transport & Storage, Accommodation & Food Services, Information & Communication, Financial & Insurance Services, Real Estate & Business Services, Education, Health & Social Work, and Recreation & Personal Services.

Producers and sponsors

Primary investigators
Name Affiliation
Uganda Breau of statistics Ministry of finance
Producers
Name Role
World Bank Technical assistance in data collection
Funding Agency/Sponsor
Name Abbreviation Role
Government of Uganda G.O.U Financial assistance

Sampling

Sampling Procedure
The Census of Business Establishment (COBE) is a complete Enumeration of all operating economic units with a fixed location in the country, irrespective of the number of employees. COBE was started in March 2010 and completed in June 2011. The last COBE was carried out in 2001/02 and this was followed with a Business Register update exercise in 2006/07. While the main target for the update in 2006/07 was businesses that employed five or more persons, the 2010/11 COBE focused on all businesses with a fixed location. As mentioned earlier, the main objective of the Census was to obtain a complete listing of all economic activities undertaken in the country. The data provided will be used among other things to determine the number, type and level of economic activity in the country and the employment levels by industry and to be used as a sampling frame for other economic
survey

Data Collection

Dates of Data Collection
Start End
2010 2011
Time periods
Start date End date
2010 2011
Data Collection Mode
Face-to-face [f2f]
Supervision
In order to ease the field work and supervision, the recruited human resource was grouped in teams of 4 or 5 each having a team leader and a driver. At the peak of the census, there were a total of 17 teams. While the enumerators were charged with registering all business and coding, the team leader in addition had to make initial contacts with the guides and also had to provide regular reports. Prior to the field work, each team was allocated a district to cover, basing on the Geographical location. To the extent possible attempts were made to ensure that a particular team was allocated in one Geographical area for ease of movement between businesses and for ease of supervision.
Data Collection Notes
Field work for the COBE started in March 2010 and was completed in June 2011, in five different phases. Phase 1 began in March 2010 through August 2010 with the districts of Jinja and Kabarole. Initially there were a total of five teams and each team was composed of 5 persons thus one team leader, four enumerators and a driver. Phase two was the longest, running from October 2010 to January 2011. During this period, the COBE was undertaken in Kampala, Wakiso, Mukono and Mpigi districts. There were a total of 70 Enumerators grouped in 15 teams of either four or five members. The third Phase was in the months of March 2011 and April 2011 with the same number of enumerators like in Phase 2. By the end of Phase 3 a total of 54 out of the 112 districts in the country had been covered. The fourth phase was undertaken in the month of May 2011 and the teams were increased to 20. This was to try to expedite the work and by the end of that phase, 43 additional districts had been completed and finally, the last phase was in the month of June. There were a total of 21 Data Processing Staff; 16 Data Entry Enumerators (DEO), 3 Office Editors, 1 Computer Room Supervisor and 1 programmer. The DEOs and Editors were supervised by the Computer Room Supervisor who was in charge of allocation of work, receiving of completed questionnaires, working with the Programmer to ensure that any fault in the software system was identified and resolved. It comprised of two teams, whose major work was to undertake follow-ups and to cover areas not earlier covered such as the businesses at Entebbe International Airport. In order to ease the field work and supervision, the recruited human resource was grouped in teams of 4 or 5 each having a team leader and a driver. At the peak of the census, there were a total of 17 teams. While the enumerators were charged with registering all business and coding, the team leader in addition had to make initial contacts with the guides and also had to provide regular reports. Prior to the field work, each team was allocated a district to cover, basing on the Geographical location. To the extent possible attempts were made to ensure that a particular team was allocated in one Geographical area for ease of movement between businesses and for ease of supervision. The field work required the Enumerator to physically move up and down the street/road registering all businesses. After registration, the enumerator was required to put a ‘stick-on label’ on each door or gate of the establishment to show that it was already covered. In case there was no respondent at time of first visit, a non response form was left behind and the ‘stick on label’ was put but with a cross. The GPS coordinates of the establishment were obtained for ease of locating the business establishments. The step by step exercise was undertaken as follows: • The exercise started with a briefing at the office for both Interviewers and drivers. This was a formal meeting with all the staff. During this briefing allocation of specific areas of coverage; code of conduct and allocation of vehicles were discussed, among many things. • Each team was issued all the required materials, questionnaires and these were packed in boxes and kept in the vehicle. • At the District, Team Members would first report to the District Officials who included the Chief Administrative Officer (CAO), the Resident District Commissioner (RDC), District Internal Security Officer (DISO), District Police Commander (DPC) and Town Clerks (in case of Municipalities). The key person at the district was the CAO, who in turn provided letters of introduction to the Lower Administrative Officials, the Sub - County Chiefs. • The Parish Chief or his designate was normally the guide for the enumerator by introducing him / her to the business proprietors, making sure that good responses were obtained. The provision of letters to the DPC, DISO was to ensure the security of the Staff while in the district. • Once all villages in a specified parish were completed, the Team would move to another parish and the exercise would be repeated until all villages in a given sub county division/district were complete.
Data Collectors
Name Abbreviation Affiliation
Uganda Bureau of Statistics UBOS Ministry of finance
UBOS Ministry of finance

Questionnaires

Questionnaires
The COBE questionnaire was designed in A3 booklet format such that each questionnaire booklet, referred to as a batch had 20 sheets and each sheet had 10 rows such that a maximum of only 10 businesses could be registered in each sheet and as such a maximum of 200 business could be registered in each batch. Each batch had a unique batch number and each of the sheets was also pre-coded from 01 to 20.

Data Processing

Data Editing
This took two forms, that is, office editing and field editing. Field interviewers worked together to edit their questionnaires including allocating the right administrative codes and activity codes to the activities. Thereafter, the questionnaires were handed to the Team Leader who would in turn re-edit them before handing over to the supervisor for office editing and subsequent data entry.

Access policy

Confidentiality
In order to ensure confidentiality and adherence to the UBOS Act, each enumerator was formally appointed and would thereafter swear an Oath of Secrecy. This was taken before the Chief Magistrate or his designate.
Access authority
Name Affiliation Email
Uganda Bureau of Statistics Ministry of finance ubos@ubos.org

Metadata production

DDI Document ID
DDI-UGA-UBOS-COBE-2010-v01
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