UNITED Nations Development Programme (UNDP) resident representative in Jamaica Gillian Lindsay-Nanton has said measuring the pace of development can provide critical insights on how to devise policies to improve living standards for the poor.
She said that human development statistics are "key to the policy-making processes of countries and regional organisations helping them to assess their situation, set objectives and targets improving accountability and advocacy, focusing policy and measuring progress and development".
Ms. Lindsay-Nanton warned that statistics must be handled with care. She said that "when based on careful research and method, indicators help establish strong evidence, open dialogue and increase accountability."
Indices developed by the UNDP over the past several years have provided objective information on trends in human development which reveal that economic and social rights are not being enjoyed by millions of people globally.
Ms. Linsay-Nanton was addressing a group of statisticians from fifteen Caribbean countries attending a workshop which will meet over the next ten days (August 23-September 1). They are exploring strategies for improved compilation of policy oriented on social and gender issues in the region.
The "Workshop on the development of social and gender statistics for CARICOM member countries" is being hosted in Ocho Rios by the Statistical Institute of Jamaica (STATIN) on behalf of the United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD) in collaboration with the Caribbean Community Secretariat (CARICOM). It follows a workshop on environment statistics for CARICOM held in Belize earlier this month.
The workshop in Jamaica is a timely response to a real need in the Caribbean region - "the development of social and gender statistics which will assist the region in adequately addressing issues of national and global concerns."
Ms. Lindsay-Nanton said that practitioners and policy makers must seek to ensure that they bring the higher level of professionalism and credibility to the date collection and analysis process and the "all statistical analysis is anchored in an interpretation drawing on the broader political, social and contextual analysis."
While there have been significant improvements in national statistical systems in CARICOM countries, there is substantial variation in the level of statistical development with several having inadequate data in critical areas such as poverty, environment, the informal sector, national accounts and gender equality.
Noting that statistical systems are an important tools in the policy-making processes of countries and regional organisations, Ms. Lindsay-Nanton said that several United Nations global conferences in the past decade have called for more comprehensive and concerned efforts on the part of national governments and international agencies to support the development of statistics and indicators.
This week's workshop, the UNDP head said, "aims to strengthen national and regional capacity in the compilation of statistics and indicators for effective conference follow-up and to provide a forum for technical staff in CARICOM to work together toward a common goal."
In addition, she said, it was expected that the workshop would reinforce existing South/South networks, creating opportunities for experts to learn from peers; strengthen the ability of national institutions to produce relevant statistics on environment and gender concerns routinely and ensure their availability in easily accessible formats for policy-making and programming and improve the capacity for sharing information and results between producers and users of statistics.
Describing the Ocho Rios workshop as one of several opportunities for sharing experiences, she said that "its focus on social and gender statistics is appropriate in view of the inadequate attention being paid to these areas."
It was hoped she said that the workshop would provide a further building block toward the establishment of a critical mass of statistical systems in the area of social and gender statistics in the Caribbean region.
Countries participating in the workshop include Antigua & Barbuda, The Bahamas, Barbados, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Montserrat, St. Kitts & Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent & the Grenadines, Suriname and Trinidad & Tobago.
