When statisticians run out of numbers

THE world of statistics, data and measurement moved into overdrive with the adoption of the Cape Town Global Action Plan for Statistics for Sustainable Development Data (CTGAP) at the 48th Session of the UN Statistics Commission in New York last week.

This action plan arose out of the very first UN World Data Forum in Cape Town at the beginning of the year, opened by Minister in the Presidency Jeff Radebe.

His challenge to us was to engage and embrace other professions in the quest for achieving sustainable development goals.

The CTGAP put together a set of steps that have to be taken in the world of data, statistics and measurement in creating and implementing the indicator framework and associated indicators for measuring, tracking and reporting on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and their related targets.

These goals were adopted at the UN General Assembly in September 2015.

The indicator framework for these SDGs will be submitted by the Statistics Commission at the UN General Assembly for adoption in six months’ time.

The road to implementation of Agenda 2030 has begun and welded on its path, are statistics and national statisticians through the UN’s Statistics Commission. They are tied together by this global agenda.

Unlike in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) era, where only developing countries were the subject of measurement, the SDGs embrace all countries. The measurement challenges are also grave.

Under MDGs there were eight goals, 18 targets and 48 indicators to work with.

Yet even these still proved to be difficult to measure, especially for the developing south. South Africa for example, could not generate indicators of maternal mortality rates and the inadequacy of this had to be embarrassingly explained in annual MDG country reports. But we are now past that with the running of the Demographic and Health Survey last year.

In the SDGs, there are 17 goals and 169 targets. Like the Biblical Joseph who ran out of numbers while undertaking a counting exercise in Egypt, of the 302 indicators, the ruler of statisticians has run out of numbers, it can only measure 230 indicators and the remaining 72 require further work methodologically.

It comes as no surprise, therefore, that an area that has received substantial attention is that of building the capability and capacity to measure as a crucial precondition means of implementation across the world. In this regard, from the UN Statistics Commission (UNSC) as the chairperson of the board of the newly formed African Centre of Excellence (ACE) based in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, we were holed at Ensea with the board to discuss how Ensea will lead a network of African statistics-training institutes to build the sorely needed capacity to measure for the continent.

Ensea was judged the best institute of statistics on the African continent by the World Bank, which is financing this significant programme. It aims to change the face of measurement on the African continent and the financing for the programme runs for an initial four-year period.

The role Stats SA plays on the continent and subsequently globally, dates back to 2006, when we led the charge for African countries to undertake a count of their populations in the 2010 UN Round of Population and Housing Censuses.

At the time, the UN Commission for Africa (Uneca), had dropped the ball and had no continent-wide strategy and subsequently programmers for statistics.

The government of South Africa gave me the treacherous task of ensuring that a statistics institute be established at Uneca. The newly appointed leadership at Uneca asked Chief Temitope Ajayi, the retired head of statistics Nigeria, and I to work on the strategy and work plan, including staffing and budget. The task was executed and by 2007 the African Centre for Statistics (ACS) was established at Uneca with its first director appointed.

During this period, challenges were several, including responsibilities that I was assigned by South Africa to work in Sudan on the Census of 2008, which was a constitutional requirement for the implementation of the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement of Sudan.

Armed with the successful experience of running a census under conditions of strife and war in Sudan, I was deployed to advise in troubled areas such as Iraq and Afghanistan on census matters.

The situation has not changed much in this region to date, and in fact whole swathes of sovereigns are under extreme conditions of fragility. Our capacity and capability to resolve conflict through the use of evidence has been heightened without an end in sight.

But back to the Ivory Coast’s Risenga Maluleke, one of my deputies and I had to be in a meeting in Abidjan in 2008 on statistical development among Pan-African institutions. But the relations were vexed and our mandate as the chair of the African Symposium for Statistical Development (ASSD) was to ensure that we, as Africans, agree on the course of action and execute the plan.

It was at one such meeting where the discussions were very frank and mandates were fought over.

In the evening, we were invited for supper at Ensea by our hosts. We were impressed by the institute.

The surroundings were exquisite and the gardens manicured. The contrast over the fence between the dilapidated University of Ivory Coast and this institute was palpable.

Koffi N’guessan, the director of the institute, and his approachable walkamong-the-students leadership-style distinguished Ensea.

We agreed within minutes with him after a brief tour of the institute that we would send staff members to this school for training. By August, staff from Stats SA were in Abidjan and every year since we have had staff learning statistics in French at this school.

The benefits of this approach are massive. Looking ahead at Agenda 2063, economic diplomacy will be settled by those armed with simultaneous ability to count and break the language barriers. This African elite cadre of the future will crucially serve South Africa’s National Development Plan (Nepad) and the Africa Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) for the continent.

As we can witness nine years later, when it mattered the most which centre would be an African Centre of Excellence, no doubt Ensea in Abidjan was head and shoulders above everyone else, in large part because of the forced innovation of having had to get students from South Africa and subsequently from Anglophone Africa.

A strategic thrust among four others at our board meeting was to ensure bilingual tuition as a deliberate investment for Agenda 2063, Nepad and APRM. Through ACE we can measure and plan Africa and for Africa better.

Like the biblical Joseph… Their rulers can measure only 230 indicators, the remaining 72 require further work methodologically

Dr Pali Lehohla is South Africa’s statisticiangeneral, head of Statistics South Africa and chair of the board of African Excellence Centre