19 Nov 2017

Statistics plays an important role in planning, monitoring and evaluation of development.
Speaking at African Statistics Day commemoration in Francistown on Friday, acting deputy statistician general, Ms Malebogo Kerekeng said thus Africa celebrated the day to raise awareness on the importance of statistics in all aspect of social and economic life.

She noted that the availability and appropriate use of good economic statistics could translate into better lives for people through providing evidence as a base for policy and decision making by businesses, households and citizens.
She said statistics was crucial as it provided information for monitoring, evaluating and reporting of the progress in meeting goals and targets of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as well as a basis for the effective economic governance to promote the welfare of the nation.

She further explained that the achievement of (SDGs), which were packed with tremendous promises of the better quality of life for all, was to be owned especially by Africans where poverty continued to strike the lives of people.
Ms Kerekeng noted that it was of paramount importance that the (SDGs) implementations took a methodological approach in understanding the function of economic statistics in which they played important role in the economy.
She said therefore the most appropriate economic development strategies and policies should be designed.

She explained that economic statistics across the continent required strengthening in order for it to provide information for monitoring, evaluation and reporting progress in meeting goals and targets.
She also stressed that good financial statistics helped improve the transparency and good governance of the economy, thus the betterment of the wellbeing of the people.
She added that financial and trade statistics boosted the economy, which in turn benefited the market, households and individuals.

She implored the public to work with their office because their responses enabled them to produce quality official statics that could be used in decision making at various levels.
For her part, Francistown regional office coordinator, Ms Boitumelo Gaongalelwe noted that many Batswana did not understand the importance of giving statistics to their office.

She implored Batswana to cooperate with the office when they want statistics because it would benefit them at the end of the day.
She also urged the data collectors to always maintain privacy of their informants and urged the public to freely give their officers information they required because information was always protected. ENDS