S.I.B. Hosts its First Annual Data Users Conference
Today at the Belize Institute of Management, a data users conference was organized by the Statistical Institute of Belize for stakeholders, including academia, agencies and policymakers. It is focused on using data to inform decisions and today the event was held on the occasion of Caribbean Statistics Day. News Five’s Duane Moody reports.
Duane Moody, Reporting
Belize celebrated Caribbean Statistics Day by hosting a data users conference today. Participants were able to get firsthand information on the role of the Statistical Institute of Belize, the services it offers and the data it has collected over time which can be used for research purposes, to inform policy decisions. It’s the culmination of activities for Statistics Week.
Diana Castillo - Trejo
Diana Castillo – Trejo, Director General, S.I.B.
“The importance of statistics, how data users can access it, how they can use – so it is to showcase what we do and how we can make the most of the data that we collect. So today’s event is our first data users conference; we intend to make it an annual event and it is a forum for us to engage directly with our data users. We are sharing with them in this first event what we have and how they can access it. We are sharing with them some of our innovations in terms of geospatial technology and we are also engaging them to get their feedback in terms of data gaps that they would like to see filled. How well the data that we produce meets their needs and so on.”
The Statistical Institute of Belize follows very strict standards and occasionally invites external experts to vet the process of ensuring the accuracy of data. Director General Diana Trejo says that there are multiple channels that are up to date and secure which can be utilized to access national data.
Diana Trejo
“We have our website; we have an indicators portal with dozens and dozens of indicators that we update annually. And then we also have additional data profiles where advance users can actually go into those portals and derive their own tables from data sets that we have shared there. So a part of the purpose of today is to build that awareness, to show users this is where you can access the data, this is how you can access it and hopefully out of this we have more people utilizing this data for their various purposes.”
The cross-section of participants includes international partners who are frequent users of the data and who support the development of the quality of statistics in Belize. Also present were agencies that are members of the national statistical systems and provide data collected by the S.I.B. One such partner is the UNDP Regional Hub for Latin America and the Caribbean.
Renata Pardo
Renata Pardo, Multidimensional Poverty Specialist, UNDP Regional Hub
“Explaining all the data that the S.I.B. has, the uses that they can give to the surveys, it is important because then they can know I want to analyse education, labour force, the different dimensions that affect people in different ways. Who are you talking to, what you want to show. It makes it easier to communicate – for example poverty estimates. It is easier if you want to know how many people are poor, how many are not and what are the types of characteristics. So I think this is so relevant. Just communicate simple things that are relevant to the population or to the public ministries.”
There is a wide range of data that the S.I.B. produces and the activities help to build that awareness.
Diana Trejo
“What we find is that even though we think we are producing and putting out a lot of data, our data users are not always aware of it. So we want to show them what we have, we want to direct them to other channels that they can use to access it and we want to know what more they need from us. So that is where we are starting.”
Duane Moody for News Five.
