A High Level Panel on the Post-2015 Development Agenda determined that a “true data revolution would draw on existing and new sources of data to fully integrate statistics into decision making, promote open access to, and use of data and ensure increased support for statistical systems ”.
The assemblage of data structures that make up this data revolution are requiring of the statistical systems to contemplate the technical, ethical and scientific challenges that confront their custodians.
This article identifies and describes these data structures, their value to sustainable development and the considerations for the OECS Commission as the leader of the regional statistical system (RSS) an interrelated network of national statistical offices (NSOs), data users, data providers and a set of rules that connect them.
There are two facets of data that are contenders in the revolution – structured and unstructured. Structured data are collected from targeted sources and produce official statistics as a public good from a statistical system made up of laws, regulations, guidelines, standards, methodologies and concepts. Official statistics serve the whole spectrum of the society and are produced by statisticians with assured professional independence and objectivity.
Unstructured data are produced every second from interactions between human activity and the digital world. Their propriety characteristic disqualifies them as a public good. The explosion of unstructured data forces us to re-imagine what can be done to and with official statistics.
It is inarguably that today’s ICT innovations create a complex, interconnected and dynamic
Readying for the Data Revolution: Integrating Traditional and Contemporary Data for Development Results
by: Dr. Gale Archibald , Head, OECS Statistical Services Unit
playing field for data where the traditional has no other choice but to embrace and welcome the contemporary.
The OECS Commission is paying attention, embarking on a bold, broad, transformative agenda for official statistics that will respect conventional but also exploit modern data.
It is readying for the data revolution for sustainable development. The Commission will advocate for an integration of the conventional and the modern, so that the Economic Union’s development programmes and regional integration pursuits reflect the amalgamation and presentation of empirical facts, sentiments, location and temporal stamps into visual narratives about our economic, social and environmental space.
Empirical facts emerge from official statistics using data collected from censuses, surveys and administrative sources. The latter include for example, crime records, birth and death registration records, business registration records and education records, all of which are collected for statutory and regulatory functions and not necessarily for statistical purposes.
Census and surveys are usually scheduled events to collect data from people and businesses based on scientific methodologies. They produce for instance, traditional official statistics on poverty level, unemployment, visitor motivation and economic activity.
Sentiments and human behaviour sensors such as actions, movement, choices and preferences can be exploited from unstructured voluminous data that are created in real-time; at a velocity, for example, where every minute over 200 million emails are sent; which are generated from the work, social and business activity of millions of