Covid-19 prompts NSOs to harness capabilities: PSA president

The Covid-19 has prompted NSOs or national statistical offices to harness their capabilities by establishing partnerships that allow the provision of open-source data on development issues and its integration with other relevant sources in real time, according to Planning and Statistics Authority (PSA) president Dr Saleh Mohamed al-Nabit.The Covid-19 pandemic has emphasised the importance of data in planning global emergency crises management to allocate resources efficiently, he told the regional workshop on the changing role of official statistics in Qatar.The workshop is organised in co-operation with the United Nations organisations operating in Qatar, and in co-ordination with United Nations Statistics Division or UNSD, Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia or ESCWA, Qatar Charity, and Qatar Computing Research Institute at Hamad bin Khalifa University."This has prompted the NSOs to harness their capabilities on the implementation of innovative technological practices in response to the requirements of the new phase imposed by the pandemic, mainly the establishment of partnerships that allow the provision of open-source data on development issues and its integration with other relevant sources in real time," he said.The PSA president stressed the role played by it in accelerating the transformation of the official statistical system as one of the national development drivers and an effective tool in measuring progress towards achieving such development, considering the goals of the 2030 Agenda for sustainable development.Referring to the “Statistical Communication Strategy” that was recently launched by the PSA, he said it was prepared to establish a joint working mechanism between the PSA and its partners in the statistical field inside the country and abroad."This would support our vision of creating an efficient and effective statistical and information system that meets the needs of the beneficiaries professionally and enjoys great credibility and confidence. It is hoped that this strategy will contribute to monitoring development statistical variables for the purposes of following up the implementation of the Third National Development Strategy and preparing high-quality reports in this regard," he said.The generation of and demand for vast amounts of data in order to conduct analytics and forecasts related to market and investment conditions, and the use of such data in the field of policies and decision-making exceeds its traditional scope. Thus, data that is generated every day and everywhere via the use of social media, smart phones, other sensors, and spacecraft needs relentless efforts to be employed in the national development process, according to him.He also stressed the need for ministries, government agencies and the private sector to co-operate in building a modern system of highly credible data that provides the necessary databases for users in the public and private sectors, and for workers in the field of scientific research, innovation, market studies and other groups of society.