President Yoweri Museveni on Saturday urged Ugandans to participate in the upcoming national population and housing census later this month.

Museveni told reporters at the State House Nakasero that the 10-day exercise, starting on Aug. 28, aims to gather accurate statistics for planning purposes and improving social service delivery in the country.

"The population and housing census is good for evidence-based planning. It will help in formulating, monitoring and evaluating the national programs," said Museveni.

"It's a critical input to ensure efficient human resource development, monitoring and evaluating social change. We shall know how much medicine we need to send to hospitals and how many schools we have," he added.

He said those who are superstitious about counting them need to be educated about the importance of the process.

A total of 80,000 enumerators have been recruited to carry the national exercise in 60,000 villages across the country.

Uganda's last national population and housing census was carried out in September 2002. The country's population is estimated at 34 million.