BASSETERRE, St. Kitts -THE need for proper analysis of relevant statistics has gained the attention of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), as a high-ranking official warned that moving on without it may deplete people’s confidence in financial institutions.
In addressing the OECD’s Third World Forum on Statistics, Knowledge and Policy on October 28, the organization’s Secretary-General Angel Gurría cautioned that going forward without a “new generation of statistics” would reduce the confidence that citizens have in their financial sectors’ capacities to address problems.
A major challenge, he noted, is the frequent disparities between official statistics on economic performance and the actual perception of citizens on the ground. He stressed that any report of economic growth must not only be recorded, but also felt.
“Economic resources are not the only things that matter,” Gurria said. “To capture well-being, we have to measure the expectations and level of satisfaction of individuals, how they spend their time, their paid and unpaid work, their capabilities, the relations they have with other people, their political voice and their participation in public life”.
The OECD official attributed the apparent gap between measurement and people's perceptions to the inappropriate use of statistics rather than low quality recordkeeping. He warned that this can lead to “biased analysis, wrong policy targets” and can be damaging to both the credibility of political action and the functioning of democracy.
He urged delegates present to move beyond using Gross Domestic Product as a measure of economic performance, as it may be misleading if used for other purposes.
“We are now hopefully approaching the end of the recession, but the gap was already evident during the years of ‘good’ economic performance and may be widening further today.
GDP was growing but most people did not necessarily feel better-off.
“This is a major political challenge: we have to restore trust and we can only achieve this if policy action has tangible impacts on people's life,” he stated.
A similar call was made in September 2007 by policy makers in the region during the International Conference on Statistics, held at the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank (ECCB) Headquarters, St. Kitts.
The central bank has since committed the next three years to working closely with its member countries to “strengthen the institutional arrangements for data management and to provide good quality, accurate, comprehensive and timely data”.
