Official statisticians have made exclusive contributions to the development of geographic information systems that have now laid claim to navigation systems in a keynote address I delivered at the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa.
The transition from an office to a system is gallantly illustrated in Chapter Four of the United Nations Handbook on Management and Organisation of National Statistical Systems. The handbook introduces the concept of a national statistics system.
This concept was never referred to in the first and second editions of the Handbook series of official statistics. Even the predecessor edition of this fourth edition only referred to the national statistical system only 58 times in its 400 pages, while the national statistics office or offices have a mention 19 times. In the fourth Edition, however, the national statistical system or systems are mentioned 598 times, which is 10 times more compared to its earlier predecessor, the third edition. The national statistics office or offices is mentioned 200 times in this 900 odd-paged document.
There is no doubt that the preponderance of the word system or systems suggests that we are in a different space where the office tribe has had to die in order for the systems to be collaborative to be born and flourish.
The first edition, however, did take account of the national statistics office and its role in the management of statistical units in different departments. These were under the supervision of a national statistician. There is little doubt, therefore, that the notion of a system existed, but yet, there ought to have been a constraint in making this an explicit attribute in language and in the statistics act.
In time, especially in English-speaking Africa, the role of the National Statistics Office diminished relative to the statistical units in line departments, and the office depended on the host departments to pay the statistics staff. Thus, contributing to a precipitous decline of the authority of the national statistics office.
The programme is anchored on a long-term vision of Africa’s integration agenda that has three themes, which are: Political Integration and Regional Governance, Economic Integration and Social and Cultural Integration.
In the context of statistical systems, at the centre should be aggressive innovation, and Data Innovation Laboratory (DIL) become excellent learning areas through which we can explore the Africa Integration Agenda, which forms the basis for the Strategies for the Harmonisation of Statistics in Africa (ShASA).
The DIL programme builds on the earlier initiatives in statistical production, such as the African Development Information Highway (AIH), designed to deliver on the High Fives of the AfDB. The impact of the AIH initiative should be about these High Fives of Light up and Power Africa; Feed Africa; Industrialise Africa; Integrate Africa; and Improve the Quality of Life for the People of Africa.
But to eat an elephant, you need to munch it, a bite at a time. To this end, while the broad frame is to meet the integration agenda through reduction of friction in the statistical collection, capture once use and reuse and data augmentation, the DIL has made its immediate task that of addressing Disaster, Distance, and Dis-empowerment.
The triple “D” agenda is suited to communities that are disadvantaged, such as rural areas, women, youth and children. Whenever there are difficulties, the rural, the women, youth and children are most likely to be left behind, and the DIL, in its mission, will make these groups and reveal their circumstances as a primary objective. The aim is that the DIL will seek to surface customer insights, value chain insights and technology insights on the triple D of Disaster, Distance and Dis-empowerment as a core and key priority.
First, Why Africa needs a System of Data Innovation Labs, Open Data Platform status and Planned Upgrade, How to Solidify Data Transmission from Production to Dissemination through the core list of the indicator’s availability (detailed status for each country and each topic) and abiding by Open data principles and data ecosystem orchestration. This is possible and can enable Improvements and the ownership of the AIH within the country.
By way of reminding ourselves, statisticians have been at the helm of innovation more than 5000 years ago, starting with the Chinese Census. They designed complex instruments for data collection processing, and dissemination on a grand scale through a census.
For the longest period, we have had to design systems of outbound logistics and reverse logistics. In this regard, we printed questionnaires which were taken door to door by enumerators. Then, the information was coded and captured through key entry.
An advance in this through scanning technology is that the data is captured and then coded. But with handheld devices the data is captured on pre-coded devices. Finally, with the advent of censor-based technologies, this information is captured passively.
Official statisticians have made exclusive contributions in the development of geographic information systems that have now laid claim to navigation systems.
Dr Pali Lehohla is the director of the Economic Modelling Academy, a Professor of Practice at the University of Johannesburg, a Research Associate at Oxford University, a board member of Institute for Economic Justice at Wits and a distinguished Alumni of the University of Ghana. He is the former Statistician-General of South Africa.
BUSINESS REPORT