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The event was held at the Sheikh Khalifa Hall at the National Center for Documentation and Research, and attended by H.E. Butti Ahmed Mohammed Bin Butti Al Qubaisi, Director of Statistics Centre − Abu Dhabi, and the centre’s Higher Management and staff. The lecture was organised as part of a series of specialised lectures that SCAD organises in support of its key strategic initiative to “Promote Statistical Awareness”.
In his lecture on “Modern Trends in Official Statistics”, Dr. Taamouti indicated that statistics is witnessing a new phase that requires its development and asserted the need for official statistics to reflect those changes and respond to them if it were to retain its relevance and value. He explained the key driving factors that led to the basic changes in the concept of official statistics in relevant domains. The lecture provided a description of the new trends in the field of official statistics which was presented as a vital concept that develops over time in response to various changes and requirements. Moreover, Taamouti stressed the need to adopt a high policy based upon the relevance of statistics, and to introduce newly developed ICT innovations to the methods used for data collection in order to improve both the quality and the efficiency of how statistics are produced and disseminated, and to increase the value of statistics through developing the processes of data analysis and processing.
Statistical production
In the beginning, Taamouti explained the statistical production process and the changes, it is witnessing, and their key driving factors, indicating that official statistics are produced to meet the needs of users, for policy making, policy monitoring and evaluation and research purposes, and that they need to produce timely, accurate, reliable and relevant information. During recent years, he concluded, many important changes have affected what is produced, i.e. the statistical product, and the way it is produced.
Key driving factors
The key driving factors of the change in the mechanism of official statistics production, according to Taamouti, are driven by economic and social transformation as well as technological and methodological innovations.
Some of those factors were the recent economic and financial crises that resulted in the increasing need for more information on produced stocks (real estate market), financial assets, liabilities, etc., to allow for a more accurate assessment of economic situation and the necessity to produce timely economic indicators and improve economic and financial forecasting (Rapid Estimates of Economic Trends seminars).
Another factor is the food crises and market volatility which raised the question of the availability of agricultural statistics that allows for a reliable assessment of the situation (in terms of stocks, forecasting crops, etc.). This, for example, has led to the initiative of the UNSC to establish a FOC (Forecasting of Crisis) group on agricultural statistics, followed by the joint partnership by UN-FAO-WB on a “Global Strategy to improve Agricultural and Rural Statistics”.
A third factor, Taamouti maintained, is the increasing awareness of the environmental deterioration that lead to the need to develop environmental statistics that has put pressure for the calculation of gas emissions and stressed the need for coherence in definitions and standards, and recently a the adoption of the System of Environmental-Economic Accounts (SEEA) and more strict sustainability measures.
The shifting economic structures also lead to updating many statistical classifications (ISIC4 raising separately two new sectors “water supply, sewerage, waste management and remediation activities” and “information and communication”).
ICT innovations changed the way statistics are
The presenter showed how the use of computer assisted personal interviews (CAPI), optical character recognition (OCR), mobile phones, GPS, internet surveys, etc. increases the reliability of data and reduces the delays in production process.
During the dissemination phase of statistical production, the use of GIS, videos, new visualization techniques has lead progressively to the integration of statistical information and geospatial information.
The increasing international links and the need for cross country comparisons has enhanced coordination of statistical activities (such as the International Comparison Program (ICP) in which only 146 countries participated in 2005 but this number rose to 186 countries in the 2011 round).
Also, the need to better understand economic and social dynamics and the insufficiency of cross section surveys led to the development of longitudinal surveys designed to capture more comprehensively the dynamics of social and economic change (such as poverty dynamics and labor market dynamics).
Taamouti drew attention to the need to reduce the burden on survey respondents through the use of administrative records, methodological innovations to provide robust estimates despite high non-response rates and better organization of statistical surveys.
In addition to all other ICT innovation factors that initiated change in official statistics, the development of registers for reasons other than statistical production allowed for more reliance on these new sources which, at the same time, helped reduce the burden on statistical units and proved cost-effort- and time saving.
Moreover, Taamouti asserted that the low level of trust in official statistics in many countries has led to institutional reforms that aim at the provision of more independence, in particular, to their NSOs, giving examples from various countries showing varying levels of public trust in national statistical organizations.
In the UK in 2007, only 33% tended to trust official statistics while the average across the European countries was 46%.
In New Zealand 2011, 37% almost always trusted their NSOs, 41% trusted them sometimes and 14% hardly ever do so.
In Australia in 2010, 87% of respondents tended to trust or greatly trusted ABS statistics.
In Morocco in 2010, 46% of respondents trust official statistics but only 8% believed that it is independent from Government.
Reconsiderations
Other key driving factors are the need for the reconsideration of the adequacy of current measures of progress and the realisation of the gap between the economic and social situation as described by official statistical indicators and the feeling of the population regarding specific issues like unemployment, inflation, poverty and growth inequalities. Those factors gave way to raising deep questions about what official statisticians produce and the way they produce it, demanding a large reconsideration of current measures, which, according to Taamouti, has resulted in many national, regional and international initiatives aiming at the enlargement of statistical measures of progress that are referred to as “beyond GDP” measures, the introduction of sole economic indicators, and the consideration of the feeling and perception of the population and subjective wellbeing.
Moroccan Statistical System
The presenter gave an overview of the Moroccan statistical system, stating that the Law regularizing Statistics in Morocco was issued in 1968. Taamouti described the Moroccan statistical system as a highly decentralized system that comprises many statistical producers. The core of the system is the Statistics Directorate, which acts under the authority of the High Commission for Planning. The Statistics Directorate undertakes main surveys, census and has a coordination role of the system as well.
In response to the driving factors of changes, Taamouti referred to many statistical projects the Morocco has undertaken such as “The Well-being Survey” that was conducted in 2012 covering a sample of 5000 households. This survey aimed at the identification of the dimensions that matter to the population, self-evaluation of personal well-being and happiness, the assessment of which dimensions went well and which went wrong, in addition to collecting data on relevant policy information. Another pioneering survey was conducted in 2011, entitled “The Youth Survey,” and aiming at the identification of main youth problems, measuring their trust of different national institutions and the degree of the youth’s civic participation, the identification of the youth’s needs and concerns, and their perception of social situation.
A new quarterly household confidence survey was launched in 2007 to capture household perceptions of the evolution of the economic situation (unemployment, living standards, personal financial situation, prices, etc.). The “Household Perceptions Survey” is another key survey that measures the perception of the evolution of standards of living and household priorities that allowed the analysis of the relationship between household perception and objective indicators and how priorities change in comparison with economic and social achievements.
Another statistical innovation in Morocco is the “Personalized Consumer Price Index” which allows the re-computation of the whole path of Consumer Price Index after changing the weights of the components of the reference basket.
The statistical agencies in Morocco have also conducted the second “Time Use Survey” which measures the activities of a typical Moroccan (man, woman and child) during the 24 hours of a typical day. This survey will allow the measurement of quality of life and will also allow a first household satellite account. Taamouti indicated that, in the European version of the survey, a question is added to measure how far people are enjoying their time, asking whether any activity is considered a good moment or not and ranking it on a scale from -3 to +3.
As for the economic surveys, Morocco adopts a 5-year cycle system for the base year of National accounts, and the base year for all economic indices (CPI, PPI, PI, etc.).
Dissemination: some new trends
Taamouti pointed out that coping up with modern trends in dissemination requires the establishment of an effective information system of national statistical data, which he regarded as a key factor to strategic competitiveness, stressing the impact of timely data collection and analysis to support urgent decision making.
He concluded the lecture by emphasizing the challenges facing statistical work in the first half of the 21st century, maintaining that coping with the rapid and successive changes witnessed in modern times, on all levels, require a huge statistical effort as well as the development of new mechanisms that allow nations not only to cope with change but to predict it through the use of electronic analysis and classification methods.
The presenter answered the questions posed by the attendees, commending Statistics Centre Abu Dhabi for its notable achievements in the service of all sectors of development. He also pointed that the centre has recently been able to achieve qualitative milestones, stressing the high ambitions of SCAD’s strategy and business plan, and asserting his belief in SCAD’s ability to carry out its plans as long as it continues to proceed at its current progress rate.
In conclusion H.E. Butti Ahmed bin Mohammed Al Qubaisi, Director of Statistics Centre − Abu Dhabi thanked the presenter and audience, stressing SCAD’s aspiration to establish continued cooperation with leading statisticians worldwide. He also stressed SCAD’s keen interest in continuing to present such important lectures in support of its plan to “promote of statistical awareness”.
The Statistics Center Abu Dhabi launched this lecture series with a lecture presented by Professor Brian Pink, Chief Government Statistician in Australia and Director of the Australian Bureau of Statistics, who was on an official visit to SCAD, followed by a lecture by Professor Paul Cheung, Director of the Statistics Division of the United Nations.
It is worth mentioning that the presenter, Dr. Taamouti, has held numerous notable positions; he was consultant for many national and international organizations (World Bank, UNDP, FAO, UNIDO, etc.), a member of the Scientific Committee of the Casablanca Stock Exchange since 2011, a member of the Moroccan Competition Council, since 2009, and a co-chair of the Board of the Partnership in Statistics for Development in the 21st Century (PARIS21). Since March 2008, he is the Director of Statistics, High Commission for Planning in Morocco. He worked on the development and analysis of many surveys (Employment, LSMS, NGO, Business, population perceptions, living standards, etc.). Organized and contributed to the organization of several conferences and workshops. He directed several cooperation and partnership programs. He is also a member of several working and experts groups of the United Nations (Human development, agricultural statistics, etc.).
As mentioned that Dr. Mohammed Tamomci held several important positions, where he was a consultant to many national and international organizations (World Bank, United Nations Development Programme, Food and Agriculture Organization, UNIDO, etc.), and a member of the Scientific Committee of the Casablanca Stock Exchange since 2011, and member of the BoardAnd since March 2008 he served as Director of the Statistics Commission High Planning in Morocco, where he works to develop and analyze a lot of surveys, such as the Labour Force Survey and surveys measuring living standards and scan facilities non-governmental and survey businesses and survey perceptions population survey of living standards, and others, also organized and contributed to the organized several conferences and workshops, and managed several programs of cooperation and partnership, which is also a member of several groups of experts with the United Nations, such as human development, agricultural statistics, and others.
During the SCAD lecture.
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Posted by Siba Sami Ammari
Sunday, September 23 – 2012 at 09:11 UAE local time
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