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Posted: Friday 18 October, 2019 at 9:40 AM

CARICOM Secretary-General urges reflection on power of Statistics

By: Stanford Conway, SKNVibes.com

    BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – IN his message on the 11th Observance of Caribbean Statistics Day, CARICOM Secretary-General Ambassador Irwin LaRocque had encouraged all citizens and residents of the region to reflect on the power of statistics and how it impacts their daily lives, including in life and death situations such as natural disasters that affect them ever so often.

     

    Statistics Day was observed on Tuesday (Oct. 15) and, as it was for 2018, tbis year’s theme is “Building the Resilience of the Caribbean Community”.

    The Secretary-General stated that the critical use of statistics is in the forecasting of weather, which uses statistical modelling techniques to make predictions or forecasts. 

    “More importantly, if it is the case that a hurricane is likely, modelling its path   makes use of data that also inform on the number of persons that are likely to be affected,” he added.

    From that backdrop, Ambassador LaRocque pointed out that it is therefore possible to warn or move persons out of those areas and to provide basic data for national disaster management and other agencies that provide support and interventions after the event and to assess as well as to better inform the recovery efforts.

    “One important and interesting indicator that we try to measure in the region is the Number of Households/Persons that are near to coastal areas. For some of our Member States, this figure is approximately 100 percent,” the Ambassador disclosed.

    He stressed that the importance of such data was underlined in the aftermath of Hurricane Dorian, which struck The Bahamas last month with loss of lives, destruction of property, damage to the infrastructure and overall devastation to parts of that country.

    The General-Secretary opined that Regional Strategy for the Development of Statistics (RSDS) is therefore timely and necessary to strengthen and sustain statistics and modernise and transform the work being done in the regional and national statistics systems in order to assist in “Building the Resilience of the Caribbean Community”.  

    He stated that Heads of Government had endorsed the Strategic Framework for the RSDS at their 39th Regular Meeting held in July last year in Jamaica/

    He proclaimed that the Heads of Government recognised that the above mentioned is central to the advancement of the regional integration process, pointing out that “it is designed to make available harmonised, intra-regional statistics to guide and monitor its progress and to provide information for decision-making that is evidence-based”.

    Ambassador LaRocque declared that the co-operation of Member States and support of their International Development Partners is vital for the implementation of the CARICOM RSDS.

    “In this the 11th year of the Caribbean Statistics Day, I applaud CARICOM Statisticians for pursuing their dream and their vision of having a viable and effective CARICOM Statistical System. As Secretary-General of CARICOM, I have supported and will continue to support the strides that are being undertaken in this regard, led by the Standing Committee of Caribbean Statisticians. This is all being pursued in an effort to improve the lives of the people of our Community,” concluded the Secretary-General.

    Meanwhile, to mark the 11th Observance of Caribbean Statistics Day in St. Kitts and Nevis, the Minister of Social Services, Hon. Eugene Hamilton, told the nation that the Team Unity Government has pledged to continue its efforts to enhance local awareness of the importance of statistics, as well as strengthen the quality of data collection and analysis based on international standards, while improving relations with development partners to achieve those goals.
     
    He also said statistics affects the lives of individuals, noting that actuaries use statistics to assess the likelihood of future events and calculate the associated financial costs, if they were to happen. Many of them work in the insurance industry, helping insurance companies to determine risk levels and premium prices.
     
    “Statistics is important to the Government in the management of policies and programmes; the business sector for pursuing productive and profitable ventures; and the general public for making rational decisions regarding spending and life’s ambitions,” Minister Hamilton said.



     
     
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