By Hon. Marco Archer, JP, Minister for Finance and Economic Development

This week (October 13-17, 2014) is Statistics Week in the Cayman Islands. This is being held in collaboration with the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) which is celebrating the region-wide Statistics Day on October 15, 2014.

This year’s celebration has the theme “Data Revolution for Sustainable Development.” In many parts of the world, the development of statistics has been recognized as a critical factor in facilitating sustainable economic development. In the new “information economy,” greater focus is being centered on the generation and use of economic information as a resource, in addition to a greater emphasis being placed on human capital as the principal producer, repository, and disseminator of information. Organizations continually aim to maximize profitability or value for money, and increase the productivity of human resources. To achieve this objective, an even greater reliance is placed on the utilization of sound information. In short, good statistics allied to appropriate government policies, business and individual plans can change things radically for the better.

The rapidly emerging environment of the “information economy” further underpins the importance of statistical offices as   information sources. Although it is not easily recognized, information provided by these agencies can have significant impacts on the lives of people through various uses of their outputs and services.

Statistics such as the gross domestic product (GDP) influence the way in which people view their country’s economic prospects and challenges.

The more familiar consumer price index (CPI) provides a basis for changes in the compensation paid to workers and pensioners, as well as utility charges.

Macroeconomic statistics also provide a snapshot of the country’s standing in the global economy, which we in the Cayman Islands cannot take for granted in view of our reliance on off-shore markets. Several of these statistics such as GDP per capita and   balance of payments determine in part the government’s sovereign credit ratings and therefore, the interest rates paid by the government and businesses in the global capital market.

In recognition of the challenges posed by the data revolution, as Minister for Finance and Economic Development, I have prioritized a number of changes that seek to further make our official statistics more responsive to the needs of the community in general and policy-makers in particular. Additional resources are being provided to the Economics and Statistics Office (ESO) for new surveys. Next year, the Household Budget Survey 2015 will be conducted from January to December. This survey will determine the importance or statistical weights of household items that will be included in an updated consumer price index basket which is popularly used for monitoring the cost of living in the Islands.

Starting next year as well, we will have two Labour Force Surveys (LFS) – in April and October. (The October 2014 LFS, covering all districts of the Cayman Islands, started last Sunday, October 5th, 2014). LFS interviews are now conducted using tablets rather than the previously used paper questionnaires. With this enhanced technology and twice-a-year survey, we can expect more timely labour force statistics in support of employment monitoring and policy-making.

I have also proposed amendments to the Statistics Law aimed at strengthening the flexibility of ESO to respond to emerging data requirements on one hand, and ensuring greater participation of residents to these data collection activities on the other hand.

The official statistics being disseminated by the ESO are not only beneficial to the local community; they have also become assets for raising Cayman’s reputation in the global investment community. Top-notch global data organizations have recently requested to become data dissemination agents of ESO’s economic indicators to global investors. In light of these requests, there is a need for the ESO to catch up with the data dissemination terms and conditions of the most developed statistical offices in the world such as Statistics Canada. More importantly, such opportunities make it more compelling for every member of the community to invest in official statistics by participating willingly in surveys, and ultimately by using them for everyday decision-making.

In conclusion, on behalf of my Ministry, I wish to extend our sincere gratitude to all members of the community who have willingly participated in all household and business surveys. Without the information that you provide (and will continue to provide), all efforts to upgrade official statistics will be in vain. ESO will continue to abide by the provisions of the Law and the   highest professional and ethical standards to respect the confidentiality of your information, as it has done so in the many years of conducting censuses and surveys.

Thank you and may God bless the celebration of Statistics Week 2014 in the Cayman Islands.

IMAGE: www.alchetron.com

Related story:

Caribbean Statistics Day… October 15, 2014

Message from CARICOM Secretary-General, Ambassador Irwin Larocque

TODAY marks the sixth observance of Caribbean Statistics Day in the Caribbean Community (CARICOM). The first observance of Caribbean Statistics Day arose out of a decision of the Thirty-Third Meeting of the Standing Committee of Caribbean Statisticians (SCCS) which agreed to this Day being commemorated on 15th October 2009, as a mechanism to garner a greater profile for statistics in the Community and promote a culture of evidence-based decision-making in the Region.

The commemoration is also a means of recognising the crucial role of statistics across a wide spectrum of activities – from daily decision-making of individuals, businesses and students to planning, policy-making and research among governments, academia, scientists and other users.

This year’s commemoration of Caribbean Statistics Day follows from the conduct of the Second High-Level Advocacy Forum on Statistics in May 2014, and has as its theme: “Data Revolution for Sustainable Development in CARICOM – Designing and Operationalising a Framework for Statistics in the Post-2015 Development Agenda”.

That agenda has already begun to take shape with the establishment by the Secretary-General of the United Nations of the High-Level Panel of Eminent Persons on the Post-2015 Development Agenda. The report of the panel expressed the intention of finishing the job started through the Millennium Declaration. Further, it called for “a data revolution for sustainable development, with a new international initiative to improve the quality of statistics and information available to citizens”. It further emphasised the need to take advantage of new technology, crowd sourcing and improved connectivity to empower people with information on the progress towards targets.

INVESTMENT IN STATISTICS

Statistics is a vital part of the development agenda but investment in statistics remains a challenge. The CARICOM Secretariat continues to work with Member States to improve the coverage, reliability and quality of the traditional areas of statistics and to develop frameworks to measure new and emerging issues.

That Second High-Level Advocacy Forum on Statistics, referred to earlier, issued a call for commitment by governments of the Community to strengthen the national statistical systems as a key means of sustaining the development and availability of timely, high-quality and relevant statistics for decision-making, and for the empowerment of citizens of the entire Region.

Among the major issues raised by the keynote speaker and host, Prime Minister of Grenada, Dr. the Rt. Hon. Keith Mitchell, a number of participants and other contributors at the forum were the following:

* Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has to be the tool that powers the data revolution that will be used for the sustainable development of regional economies, since ICT had the potency to help countries move forward quickly and effectively through making available timely and high quality data to empower our citizens and make progress towards building resilient and highly adaptable societies:

* Decisions to enable improvements in the lives of our citizens and the mitigating of the challenges of low economic growth, high unemployment, particularly among the youth, and the reduction of poverty must be guided by statistics;

* Countries need to ensure that they have a fully-fledged National Strategy for the Development of Statistics (NSDS) that is aligned with their national economic and social development plans as well as the inclusion of financing options;

* Investing in regional approaches to building statistical capacity will help to optimise the use of scarce public resources of countries;

* Monitoring of both compliance of regional integration at the national level and of the impact of integration in CARICOM are critical issues that depend on the availability of key statistics.

The demand for statistics is expected to increase in the post-2015 development era and therefore a data revolution will require intensified efforts to address the deficiencies that still exist.

ESTABLISHING CAPS

Statisticians of the Region must be commended for the strides that they are making to improve statistics, including the establishment of the Caribbean Association of Professional Statisticians (CAPS) in May this year, which would redound to the benefit of all the people of CARICOM.

Research and Development and Innovation has been identified as a key area of intervention in all the strategic priorities of CARICOM’s first ever Five-Year Strategic Plan (2015-2019), which was approved by Heads of Government last July. The role of statistics is therefore fundamental to achieving the goals and objectives of the Plan.

With that in mind, I wish that this year’s observance of Statistics Day proves to be a catalyst for the data revolution to aid sustainable development of our Region.

IMAGE: Ambassador Irwin LaRocque

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