By Ketricia Finch
St. Kitts Reporter
The Eastern Caribbean Central Bank (ECCB) in collaboration with the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) hosted a three-day workshop entitled The International Conference on Statistics, aimed at enhancing the understanding of international, regional and local professionals in the related field for future development of their countries.
It began on Wednesday morning at the Sir Cecil Jacobs Auditorium at the ECCB. The opening ceremony featured government ministers from across the Caribbean whose interest is statistics, Director of the Statistics Department for the International Monetary Fund Robert Edwards and ECCB Governor Dwight Venner.
Sam Condor, deputy prime minister of the Federation and the minister of education, youth and social and community development in hiswelcoming remarks thanked the ECCB and the Government of Japan for the successful coordination and hosting of the conference.
“We, a Caribbean people and other people of the world have a love for statistics. Our personal income, our examination results or our general state of well being are related to statistics. We understand that nations are competing in a far more competitive way now, hence the need for a sense of urgency for appropriate responses is needed. Over the next few days, your discussions would no longer lead to creating benchmarks for statistical gathering and usage in various sectors throughout the region and the relevance of statistics to countries like those of the Caribbean,” Condor said.
Condor said it is necessary for Caribbean governments to proceed in reorganizing statistical ministries and departments.
“In doing so, we must pay particular attention to human resource training, building capacity, the proper use of technology, the legal framework that would be necessary with regards to compliance issues.”
Condor said the conference has been hosted in a technological period where there are rapid statistical changes.
“Our people are becoming increasingly more attentive to the socio-political environment and want to be informed for their own decision making as part of our maturing democracy. Governments and businesses are to be aggressive in their policy formations. Statisticians need to be equally aggressive in providing the necessary data that would inform much of the policy creation and decision-making.”
The deputy PM said there is the need for statistics that would ensure that the performance of small economies can be adequately measured against that of international partners.
“I am confident that we have the requisite experience and expertise here in this auditorium to deliver a statistical system relevant to our needs. It’s no doubt that relevant and up-to-date statistical information is acutely needed now more that ever.”
The Honourable Victor Banks, Anguilla’s minister of finance and economic development, thanked the ECCB, CIDA and the Government of Japan for their ongoing support of improving the quality of governance in the region.
Victor said scarce resources, the provision of timely, accurate and reliable statistics is a major challenge.
“These challenges stem from a range of factors including inadequate provision of resources for statistics, human and financial resources, inadequate use of the information and a low level of literacy in many countries. Because of the importance of statistical information for our overall national development, it is viable in this period of increasing globalization.
He said it is critical that governments encourage the development of global statistical centers in whatever manner they decide to function.
Victor said statistics can be both helpful and misinterpreted, and it is important to develop sound systems and strategies to ensure that we obtain good, quality statistics for planning.
“We as legislators must arm statistical agencies with the legal authority to ensure that they could effectively carry out their responsibilities.“
He said statisticians must bring more openness and transparency to statistics so that people could better understand and appreciate their decisions.
Prime Minister the Hon. Keith Mitchell of Grenada was the feature speaker with the topic, The Role of Statistics in Policy Making and Good Governance.
“In general, over the years governments have been making major developmental, social, economic and political decisions. In addition, consequences of global climate change, particularly those related to the rise in sea levels and the possible submerging of some small states, addressing the statistical challenges of a component of natural disaster planning and management systems, will continue to be extremely beneficial.
There is an increasing appetite for information-gathering not only on the processes the outcome of policy-making.”
Dwight Venner, governor general of the ECCB, gave the closing remarks, thanking CIDA and the IMF for partnering with ECCB and making the event a successful one.
