Improving Official Statistics
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Improving Official Statistics
Improving Official Statistics
Improving Official Statistics
In 2014, the UN Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics (UN FPOS) were endorsed by the UN General Assembly. The Fundamental Principles set the framework for the fundamental values and principles that govern statistical work, and recognize that in order to be effective, the fundamental values and principles that govern statistical work have to be guaranteed by legal and institutional frameworks and respected at all political levels and by all stakeholders in national statistical systems.
However, globally issues of misuse and declining trust in official statistics have become more pronounced in recent years. In response to this the IAOS has recently established the Krakow Group. This group’s mandate includes helping to identify the main issues to be tackled in relation to misuse, governance, trust and ethics.
Each region has specific challenges. In the case of the Arab region, including North Africa, the challenges of enhancing trust in official statistics and successfully implementing the UN FPOS, are exacerbated by the ongoing instability in different parts of the region.
The IAOS organised this webinar to help official statisticians in the region discuss some of the regional specific challenges in implementing the UN FPOS, in particular how statistical institutions maintain their independency especially in the time of instability.
Speakers:
Read the presentations from the webinar below:
Watch the video recording of the webinar here
“Big Data and Official Statistics in Africa – Maximising the Opportunities” webinar was organized by the International Association for Official Statistics and International Association for Official Statistics Nigeria Group, with the support of the International Statistical Institute, on 6 October 2022. The webinar aimed to promote the practical use of big data in African official statistics, including in monitoring SDG indicators, and providing timely and granular insights to support decision makers. The target audience of the webinar included NSOs, official statisticians, official data users, data producers, research institutes and academics. Along with the presentations, the webinar provided an opportunity for discussion with the speakers from different regions of the world.
Speakers:
Read the presentations from the webinar below:
Watch the video recording here
Background:
Data are becoming an integral part of the daily lives of most people around the world, with global data flows increasing one thousand times over the last 20 years. The transformations emerging from this data revolution could impact all aspects of societies and economies, including improving the lives of the more than 700 million people living in extreme poverty. From information gathered in household surveys to pixels captured by satellite images, data can inform policies and spur economic activity, serving as a powerful weapon in the fight against poverty and transforming the lives of poor people. However, we can only unlock the full value of data in both traditional and new data ecosystems if we ensure that data can be safely shared, used, and reused by all stakeholders.
To that end, the World Bank’s World Development Report 2021: Data for Better Lives (WDR2021) offers an aspirational vision of an integrated national data system (INDS) as a way for countries to realize the potential of data for development, using the three principles of the social contract for data—value, trust and equity. Such a system relies on an approach to data governance that is intentional, whole-of-government, multistakeholder, and collaborative. It explicitly builds data production, protection, exchange, and use into planning and decision-making and integrates participants from civil society and the public and private sectors into the data life cycle and into the governance structures of the system. For countries to overcome the many barriers that stand in the way of implementing these data systems, the report advocates for investments in five foundational elements: human capital, trust, funding, incentives, and data demand.
To help operationalize this vision, on June 15, 2022, the World Bank’s Development Data Group organized a virtual seminar in collaboration with the International Association for Official Statistics (IAOS). Bringing together a diverse group of discussants, the session focused on building an INDS and the critical role NSOs can play in this process, which the WDR2021 extensively discusses.
Speakers:
Watch the video recording: IAOS – World Bank Event “Building strong Integrated National Data Systems to transform people’s lives”
This side event hosted by the IAOS at the UNSC 53rd Session on February 8, 2022 provided an opportunity to explore issues of ethics, trust, governance and use of data and reflect on the Association’s proposal to create a small reflection group to give more prominence and focus to these issues.
Speakers:
Read the presentations from the side event below:
Watch the video recording: UNSC 2022 Side Event “Ethics, trust, governance and use of data: Enhancing Official Statistics Capacity to address these issues”
Location: Register for free
The workshop will be held via GoToWebinar in three separate sessions:
Under the auspices of the ISI, the Statistical Journal of the IAOS (IAOS), The Survey Statistician (IASS), Journal of Official Statistics (JOS, Statistics Sweden), Survey Methodology (SMJ, Statistics Canada), IOS Press and Wiley are organizing a workshop comprising three separate webinars of two hours each.
Presenters at the workshop are the Chief Editors (or former Chief Editors) of the journals involved, as well as experienced and successful authors and representatives from the publishers. The detailed programme can be found below.
Target group
The workshop is intended for Official Statisticians and academics (from all over the world) with interest in preparing a submission of a manuscript to a refereed international journal in the field of statistics. The workshop language will be English.
Requirements of the participants
Working knowledge of the English language.
Involved in the preparation or with an interest to prepare manuscripts for submission to a refereed international journal in the field of Official Statistics.
Access to internet to follow the webinars. (Windows, Mac)
Objective of the workshop
The objective of this workshop is to prepare Official Statisticians and researchers to draft and submit manuscripts to Official Statistics journals. The workshop focuses on manuscript drafting and structuring skills as well as on anticipating the knowledge level and expectations of the audiences and on organizing and preparing a manuscript for submission to a journal in the field of Official Statistics.
How to register
Participants are invited to register using the registration link. The workshop is offered free of charge.
Certificate of Attendance
After successful participation in the workshop, participants will be awarded with a Certificate of Attendance by the ISI. Successful participation is defined as having participated in at least 70% of the duration of each of the three webinars.
Workshop Programme
Session 1: 8 February 2022
3.00-5.00 PM (CET) Check your own timezone.
Session 2: 10 February 2022
3.00-5.00 PM (CET) Check your own timezone.
Session 3: 15 February 2022
3.00-5.00 PM (CET) Check your own timezone.
Co-sponsored by the International Association for Official Statistics (IAOS) and ASA Washington Statistical Society, speakers are:
Partha Lahiri
Professor and Director, Joint Program in Survey Methodology
Professor, Department of Mathematics
University of Maryland, College Park
Abstract:
The greater accessibility of administrative and Big Data and advances in technology are now providing new opportunities for researchers to solve a wide range of problems that would not be possible using a single data source. However, these databases are often unstructured and are available in disparate forms, making data linkages quite challenging. There is, therefore, a growing need to develop innovative statistical data linkage tools to link such complex multiple data sets. In this talk, we will focus on one important application of statistical data linkage to estimate small area proportions. We first present our general small area estimation (SAE) methodology. We then apply the proposed methodology to estimate vaccine hesitancy rates for the US states and the District of Columbia (small areas). We use data from two different surveys — one probability survey representing the entire adult US population and the other a non-probability survey representing only active adult Facebook users — and Census Bureau estimates of adult population counts at granular levels along with data from an independent COVID-19 data reporting website. The proposed SAE methodology could potentially help public policymakers target geographical areas for vaccination, public health campaigns and vaccine distribution. This talk is based on collaborative research with Professor’s Lahiri doctoral student Soumojit Das.
About the speaker:
Partha Lahiri is a Professor in the Joint Program in Survey Methodology (JPSM) and in the Department of Mathematics at the University of Maryland, College. He is a Fellow of the American Statistical Association and the Institute of Mathematical Statistics and an elected member of the International Statistical Institute. Professor Lahiri is the recipient of the 2020 SAE award for his outstanding contribution to the research, application, and education of small area estimation (SAE).
Hosted by INEGI, ISI and IAOS, speakers are:
Moderator:
This event will be hosted in Microsoft Teams and you can register to attend via this link.
Mario Palmer will also present his new book ‘Why INEGI? The saga of a Mexican institution in search of the truth‘.
Download a copy of Mario’s e-book via this link.
This event is a call to action at the national, regional and global level: where there is misuse of statistics it is time to speak out. The event will build on the webinar hosted by the International Association for Official Statistics (IAOS) on 6 October 2020.
The aim is to examine the issues raised from diverse perspectives and propose solutions to an issue that matters greatly to all members of the Statistical Commission and is relevant to many of the items on the agenda for the 52nd meeting. A number of papers on this topic will also be published in the Statistical Journal.
The webinar has taken place on 22nd February 2021. An open debate will also be live from the day of the event on www.officialstatistics.com.
You can read the papers:
Speakers:
Watch the video recording: Joint IAOS-IASS Webinar to Celebrate World Statistics Day
Read the papers:
Speakers:
You can view the presentations from the webinar here.
Speakers:
Watch the video recording New World Order and Official Statistics.
Read the papers:
Speakers:
Watch the video recording Misuse of Statistics – Time to Speak Out.
You can also have a look at the presentations:
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