Abstract

The Global Partnership for Education and International Development Research Center (2023) underscores growing global efforts to increase analytical capacities to turn data into actionable information. Many institutions in Africa experience both infrastructural and Human resource capacity gaps to interpret and use statistical information (lack statistical skills development) . A significant number of the workforce interacts with data but lack requisite skills to turn it into information. This is evidenced in 20% of policies in Africa being developed with lack of statistics while 55.3% developed with some critical sections lacking statistical evidence . Additionally, they have inadequate skills to develop and implement sampling strategies, develop data collection instruments and conduct effective dissemination of statistical information . Worth noting is that the majority of data literate and skilled workforce seem to be ageing out of the system which could perpetuate short falls in continuous capacity development and limit knowledge expansion for statistical data and its utilisation.
Limited knowledge in data management processes, communication of statistical information and high rate of statistical illiteracy are still eminent. “People managing data themselves do not know what to do with it” said by one the Ministry of Education and Sports (MoES) official during a qualitative discussion on "systemic data management challenges in Uganda (May 2023)”. Besides, the lack of open access to data policies still limits integration of existing data management systems among institutions and suffocates deeper analysis and proper data utilisation. “only 26 African countries have access to Information (ATI)” 2 laws. Data plagiarism (users failing to acknowledge the source) is one of the risks feared for data sharing and integration. The Government of Uganda (GoU) recently adopted a parish Development Model (PDM) where implementation of poverty eradication programming is now extended to the parishes. However, the readiness for parish structures in terms of agile infrastructure to manage and use data is still inadequate.
It is evident that Data is generated at various levels in both public, private, formal and informal settings. However, there is still inadequate capacity to develop agile and sustainable systems to manage this data. Lack of focused interventions for statistical literacy has birthed continuous storage of data in silos characterised by absence of data sharing protocols and diminishing integrity in data use or communication. Disseminating and communicating statistics is still traditionally done, increasingly benefiting mostly those with a statistics professional background.
Statistics/data remains in the confines of the Government or any focal institution. A lot of data is collected daily, but analysis, dissemination and usage are still lacking. Data Usage faces ineffective Dissemination strategies and poor linkages between the users and Producers which compromises quality planning and policy development. Some important data from key surveys takes a longer time to be collected such as Demographic Health Survey, National Education Survey among others.