17 Apr 2024

Statistics Botswana (SB) will conduct the 2024 Botswana ICT Household Survey from June to August.

This was revealed recently by the organisation’s  communication, documentation and dissemination manager, Ms Lillian Mogami during the release of the Department of Broadcasting Services’ first ever Botswana Audience Measurement Surveys (BAMS), which measured the radio and television audience in the country. 

The data for the ICT Household Survey, Ms Mogami said, would be collected using household and individual questionnaires, adding that the household level questionnaire would include household access to ICTs, protection of children online and awareness of ICT e-waste.

Individual level questionnaire, she said, would include individual usage of ICTs and e-Education such as; mobile telephones, computers and Internet, e-Commerce, e-Government security and privacy, as well as individual radio listenership, TV viewership and print media readership.

“This data, once published, will be available to stakeholders through the SB website and open data portals. Basically, micro data stats, the data stats themselves and data-data, which is data above the data, will be also available to everyone and can be accessed from everywhere, at any time,” explained Ms Mogami.

“The public and stakeholders can do their own analysis and visualise the statistics in the manner that they want,” she added. ICT statistics, she said were among the many sector statistics that were compiled by SB, and also stated that the importance of ICT statistics in an economy, could not be over emphasised. 

“We conduct ICT surveys and produce quarterly and annual ICT reports that are based on administrative records we get from ministries departments and agencies,” added Ms Mogami.
For that reason, she said BAMS was an important survey since it also collected ICT related data, among other data.

“The BAMS produces green statistics, which are statistics that are continuously produced. The data will greatly benefit the marketing, advertising, production and printing businesses and their clients, as well as the creative industry among others,” she added.

The organisation, Ms Mogami said had a responsibility of ensuring that official statistics were available in the country, and those were such statistics that were produced in compliance with the United Nations Fundamental Principles of official statistics.

To implement its mandate, she said SB partnered and worked collaboratively with other producers and users of statistics, providing guidance on statistical standards and methods, to enable the National Statistical System to produce quality statistics that were comparable, not just locally, but internationally as well. ENDS