CARIBBEAN Community (Caricom) Secretary General Dr Carla Barnett is encouraging regional leaders to invest more in statistics.

Speaking ahead of the 14th Caribbean Statistics Day which was observed on October 15, 2022, she said, “I encourage continued investment in statistics development, so that Caricom and its member states have at hand the data that is needed to effectively inform the development and implementation of sustainable economic, social and environmental policy. Data-driven policy development is critical to the successful transformation of our community into one where everyone can enjoy a good quality of life.”

At the turn of the century the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) reported “generally, the Caribbean countries have been described as ‘data poor’ and in the absence of data and information, policies adopted and implemented have been arrived at on the basis of little or no data and less information. The result is years of wandering in the wilderness of development — talking of visions of the promised land of development without the ability to measure proximity to that goal.”

Fast-forward two decades later and things have changed very little with a 2020 ECLAC report pointing out that “statistical legislation frameworks in the Caribbean have lagged behind in entrenching some basic good practices in official statistics, even in cases when a National Statistical Office [NSO] may be implementing such practices de facto. For example, the data revolution for sustainable development, driven by advancements in computing and information technology, necessitates that modern, non-traditional approaches to production and dissemination of official statistics be mainstreamed, whereas these are currently prohibited under many laws.”

But some progress has been made, for example, a Regional Code of Good Practice in Statistics for Latin America and the Caribbean was published in 2011. Similarly, the Caricom Secretariat created a Regional Statistics Programme in 2005 to highlight the importance of national statistics for sustainable development and encourage good statistical practices among its member states. Through this programme, Caricom Secretariat produced a Statistics Code of Practice and Statistics Model Bill. In 2018, Caricom Heads of Government endorsed a Regional Strategy for the Development of Statistics (RSDS), which includes a comprehensive evaluation of regional and national statistical systems, building on the results of the Diagnostic Assessment of the National Statistical Offices of Caribbean countries conducted in 2011/2013.

With this in mind, Dr Barnett said, “I commend the statisticians across Caricom, both at the Secretariat and in member states, for their tremendous efforts in producing and disseminating high quality statistics. Their efforts are clearly visible in the widening range and the constantly improving quality of data that is available.”

At the same time she urged the region to take the ongoing 2020 round of population and housing census in the Caribbean seriously.

The 2020 round of census has been delayed across the region by the novel coronavirus pandemic.

The theme of the Census is ‘Leave No One Behind — Everyone Counts’.

Barnett emphasised that everyone in the region counts regardless of age, gender, religion, nationality, social or economic status.

She disclosed the data is also important to the region, because of the need for sound socio-demographic and statistical information to guide social and economic policy formulation and management. She said there may be changes in population growth and other characteristics in many of the countries, noting that migration may have increased in some countries. While the young may constitute the largest proportion of the population in each country, the life expectancy of the aged has increased.

“Such changes would be reflected in the demographic data as well as in data on social and economic development, and on the social infrastructure in the countries. The impact of the coronavirus pandemic in the past two to three years would also be reflected in the patterns of mortality, morbidity, and life expectancy of populations. Everyone counts because everyone makes a significant contribution to the data necessary for decision-making purposes,” she added.

“It is my hope, therefore, that households and individuals across Caricom do respond to the census, so that its results can achieve the objective of providing accurate data for our decision-makers,” said Barnett.

A number of partners, including the European Union, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and the Government of Italy, provided critical support for the implementation of various aspects of the Caricom Regional Strategy for the Development of Statistics (RSDS).