Today is World Statistics Day. This is only the second occasion that we will be celebrating World Statistics Day. The first one was held 5 years ago, on October 20, 2010 – a date with far greater resonance in countries where calendar convention puts the day ahead of the month: 20/10/2010. The United Nations General Assembly was sufficiently pleased by the fact that 130 member nations celebrated that inaugural data day that they followed up with General Assembly resolution 69/282, which decided that henceforth every October 20 occurring in a year divisible by five would be a World Statistics Day.
This year, the theme for World Statistics Day has been given as “Better Data, Better Lives”. The emphasis of the theme is on the critical role of high-quality official statistical information in analysis and informed policy decision-making in support of sustainable development. In general, it also reflects the importance of sustainable national statistical capacity to produce reliable and timely statistics and indicators measuring a country’s progress.
There is no doubting that we are living through a data revolution today. And by it, the world is constantly changing. In simple conversion, data and statistics translates as informed decisions. It is that simple. Our choices as individuals are increasingly informed by more and more complex sources of data. Businesses are making decisions drawing on diverse and sophisticated information systems. Governments are making laws and reforming public services with an ever widening evidence base at their disposal.
In jobs ranging from journalism to government policy making, the demand for training in statistical literacy is increasing. In universities, there are initiatives that teach quantitative methods to students in disciplines outside statistics, so that they can get greater impact from their studies. And in schools, data skills are being taught throughout the curriculum in subjects from geography to biology in ways that bring the subject to life and capture the imagination of pupils. It is becoming a truth to say that those who get stats get on and those that don’t get left behind.
The scenario all over the world is that the abundance of data means that it is feasible to generate evidence in a much quicker and more targeted way to inform almost any decision of importance. That same data could also give citizens the means to hold accountable those in positions of authority in government, business or elsewhere – ensuring that they too are both respecting their personal data and using better statistics to make better decisions in the interests of future prosperity. While the world is headed in that direction guided by data and statistics, the same cannot be said of Nagaland – which is tragic.
Ours is a messy state in more ways than one. But (on a lighter not) even the mess needs data. It has to be numbered and listed, and thus identified. It is popularly believed and talked about that a former chief secretary of Nagaland once said: “Nagaland is a statistical nightmare.” One thing we can be sure of is while making that statement, he cited zero statistics!
