Statistics

Statistics

A groundbreaking consensus was achieved at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) (Rio de Janeiro, June 1992) that strategies of sustainable development should integrate environmental issues, supported by environmental and socioeconomic data, into development plans and policies. Ten years later the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) (Johannesburg, August 2002) put the emphasis on reaching specific targets in specific time frames and monitoring progress, thus reaffirming the need for bridging the gap in mechanisms and instruments such as data, statistics, indicators and integrated information systems, that measure and track progress. What is the role of statistics in assessing the implementation of the commitments made at such conferences or in decision-making?

Statistics is concerned with the collection, processing and dissemination of timely and reliable data. Statistics are an important tool for decision-making at the national, regional and international level. They are needed for assessing the current situation, for setting objectives and targets for the future, and for measuring progress and development.

Official statistics provide an indispensable element in the information system of a democratic society, serving the government, the economy and the public with data about the economic, demographic, social, and environmental situation. Data for statistical purposes may be drawn from many sources, including censuses, statistical surveys and administrative records. Evidently, the precision of the statistical analysis depends on the quality and quantity of available data.

The ongoing needs for statistics are divided into two categories: needs that call for regular observations of the same variable and needs that require information collected on an ad hoc basis. In some cases the government requires ad hoc statistical information to explain the roots of a particular problem. This situation becomes complicated when there are no measurement conventions geared to the nature of the problem or the expected answers. Clearly, translating users’ information needs into the data collection or rearrangement that will eventually take place is a complicated process.

New challenges in information management have arisen due to technological innovation and of the changes in the way economic agents organize themselves in response to new techniques. These problems also exert pressure on statistical agencies, not only for the compilation of new information but eventually for the reorganization of basic data as well.

The main problem posed to the central statistical agency is how, without compromising reliability or thoroughness, to meet the requirements for information for geographical areas that are substantially smaller than the nation. Different countries respond to this challenge in various ways. For example, in some countries the national statistic is essentially the sum of the statistics estimated by the offices of each of its politically defined regions. In other countries, an understanding is reached whereby the national statistical agency agrees to supply local offices with core statistics of equal detail and reliability for each subject area, to be supplemented with information collected by each local statistical agency.

Most statistical agencies are equipped to make effective use of censuses at the local level, but they are not usually positioned to provide a wide range of reliable non-census data at the local level. Part of the dialogue between central statistical agencies and regional and local governments revolves around what useful statistical information can be obtained from existing administrative records, as well as ways to persuade the collectors of administrative records to take into account possible regional requirements. In those situations where there is access to these records, their coverage is usually adequate for small areas. The outcome of this dialogue, if successful, is a mixture of national and regional statistical estimates with local area information derived from administrative records.
In the Caribbean, economic statistics designed for monitoring production and trade have been collected for some time. Social statistics lags behind economic statistics, but several efforts are now underway to compile data on poverty, health, and education. However, there are wide variations in the capacity to collect social statistics across the region, with some countries making significant strides in some areas, but with significant weaknesses remaining in almost every country.

The CARICOM Secretariat Statistics Sub-Programme (http://www.caricom.org/) compiles statistics on the member countries of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM). These data are submitted to the Secretariat by the member states themselves, either by the National Statistics Office or the Central Bank, depending on the nature of the data.

The CARICOM Secretariat has also been laying the foundation for achieving harmonization of statistics in the region through two approaches. Member states were asked to document their methodologies and submit them to the Secretariat. Guidelines for the documentation of these methodologies were also prepared for ease of submission to the Secretariat. A supporting activity to the achievement of harmonization is the presence of a core set of statistics in all member states. In order to achieve harmonization of statistics and to ensure sustainability in the areas of social/gender and environment statistics in the region, a CARICOM Advisory Group was established in 2001 comprising directors of selected national statistical offices, and CARICOM and United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD) representatives.

The collection of environment statistics in the CARICOM region is still relatively new. There is some information on specific fields, but other areas still have fundamental knowledge gaps. Where information does exist, it generally remains with the institution that generated it. A few countries have generated State of the Environment reports and environment statistics compendia, and in so doing have started to address the information gap. Equally, the Caribbean's vulnerability to high-impact weather events has stimulated the collection of data on disaster-related environmental events.

UNSD has been assisting the CARICOM region since 2000 in the development of environment statistics through the Project “Strengthening Capacity in the Compilation of Statistics and Indicators for Conference Follow-up in the CARICOM Region”. The Project, jointly carried out by UNSD and CARICOM, covers the areas of social/gender and environment statistics, with a supporting component of information technology. Its overall objectives have been to strengthen the capacity of national and regional statistical offices to collect and analyze statistical information, and establish a network of experts to improve intra-regional cooperation.

LINKS

The United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD) within the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs has provided technical advisory services to countries in many areas of statistical development, including data collection, data processing, and tabulations of data. In addition, the Division has produced several technical and methodological manuals and handbooks, which have served as a basis for training national experts in the analysis and presentation of statistics. Among several other publications, it has published the Handbook of Statistical Organization, (http://unstats.un.org/unsd/pubs/F88.pdf), which covers general procedures for the operation and organization of statistical agencies.

Further information on the status of statistical information in the Caribbean can be found in the IDSD Report, “Assessment and establishment of a baseline on information for decision-making in CARICOM small island developing states (SIDS)”, which can be downloaded from this website.

Links to datasets for several fields related to sustainable development in the Caribbean can be found at the Databases page on this website.

Links to National Statistics Office websites in the Caribbean:

Saint Lucia: Statistics Department (http://www.stats.gov.lc/)
Jamaica: Statistical Institute of Jamaica (http://www.statinja.com/)
Trinidad and Tobago: Central Statistical Office, Ministry of Planning and Development (http://www.cso.gov.tt/)

Contact information for these and other national offices, as well as for other regional institutions with statistical data in the region may be found at: http://www.caricom.org/CARIStats/links.html