SPC Workshop for Pacific Island statisticians
When the experts bring numbers to life
"Access to up-to-date, comparable key statistical indicators is a necessity for planners, policy makers and statisticians in the Pacific Island region. For these countries and territories, sound decision-making is the key to their future development and the well-being of their people. These decisions rely heavily on the range and quality of economic and social information available in the form of official statistics. Hence, there is an essential need for a workable, cost-effective and simple system that will help National Statistical Offices (NSOs) disseminate and share key national data" says Raymond Vuti, PRISM manager from the Statistics section of the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC).
The Pacific Regional Information System (PRISM) makes wide dissemination of essential data from the region easy, using the Internet. PRISM was an initiative of a regional meeting in 2000, when national Heads of Statistics decided that, rather than attempting to establish and maintain a regional socio-economic database, each country could maintain its own publicly accessible database on the Internet.
In early 2003, the first set of introductory workshops on website design for PRISM webmasters took place in the headquarters of the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC) in Noumea, New Caledonia. As a follow-up this year, SPC is conducting a second set of workshops - this time on advanced internet website design techniques.
Internet becomes the key to accessing Pacific Island statistics
Workshop 1 - of a series of three - brought together statisticians from seven countries in the Pacific - the Federated States of Micronesia, Kiribati, Vanuatu, Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, Tokelau, Samoa.
During their week in Noumea, SPC Communications officer interviewed these professionals from the countries and collected their thoughts and impression of their week-session.
"Thanks to these very practical and useful training sessions, FSM has now its own website. When people ask for information, I can refer them to our webpages hosted by SPC website. It makes a terrific difference in my work. It is an easier and less costly way to disseminate our statistics to the public compared to printing/dissemination of hard copies." says Brihmer Johnson, Statistics specialist from Pohnpei, Federated States of Micronesia Statistics Office.
Douglas Kimi, Statistician from Honiara, Solomon Islands enjoyed the case study given to all trainees on "key statistics". He realised the meaning of standardised information for a comprehensive and coherent approach and how analysis and comparison between different regional data would be eased. The workshop encouraged him to pursue the collaboration initiated at home with "the stakeholders committee - which includes partners from the public and private sectors - who are providers and users of economic and social data".
"In my experience, I find it still difficult to gather information from departments, services and companies in Vanuatu. Sharing with my colleagues from other parts of the region, I understand this is common and surprisingly from our discussions it shows that together we can find ways to solve this problem. Having all Pacific countries data online, for instance, underlines the usefulness of such endeavour. I am confident that this project will open minds and that the importance of statistics will be largely recognised" states Jean Mark Eddie, Statistics Compiler at National Statistics Office in Port Vila.
As for Tuifua Fesolai, webmaster at the Statistics division in the Ministry of Finance in Apia these training workshops, although very useful, are unfortunately too short. Tuifua Fesolai acknowledges however that it allowed him to consolidate his regional network as well as to strengthen his contacts with the SPC Statistics team.
Aren Leupena, Senior Statistics Officer at the Ministry of Finance in Tarawa, shared with enthusiasm how the development of Kiribati webpages broadened her knowledge in other areas of her work like health, education and social information. Since the project started, she had to collect, disseminate and update data working with colleagues from different ministries and disciplines. She recognised that "this is the way to go."
Siemai Patiale Apinelu, Statistical officer from the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning of Tuvalu, very grateful for the training, understood that one of her challenge will be to encourage users - providers of information - to access onto Tuvalu Statistics Website (*) and send updated data. Her trip to Noumea opened her horizon as she noted that most of the countries in the region are confronted with the same difficulties. "I realise that some countries like FSM are ahead of Tuvalu. It is motivating to know that. It is within Tuvalu's reach and I know for a fact that we will be up to speed very soon." says Siemai.
The interview finished with Kelekolio Kelekolio, Policy Advisor for Tokelau Planning and Monitoring Unit and the very interesting case study of Tokelau, a country which just created a statistics office. Kelekolio understand that he starts from scratch. "SPC is pushing me, especially in collecting data since none is available. That will be my first step and the "key stats" will be my guiding tool."
For more information on Statistical Information about these Pacific Island Countries and Territories, go to the PRISM website: http://www.spc.int/prism