This proposed Invited Paper Session (IPS) aims at (i) highlighting the changing role of official statistics in the developing world amid the recent global crises and its implications; (ii) discussing the importance of data culture, data governance, data stewardship, and data strategy based on a strong and modernized statistical legislation and a well-coordinated national statistical system (NSS); and (iii) informing the attendees about the past and current activities and plans of the participating National Statistical Offices (NSOs) with regards to instilling a data culture in their respective NSSs.

In this respect, this IPS is particularly of interest to the WSC attendees as it will be showcasing the challenges and prospects the presenter countries face in establishing a solid data ecosystem to meet the emerging data and information needs for the prosperity and well-being of their societies, contributions of the presenters from regional and multilateral organisations concerning the modernisation of official statistical systems for the achievement of global and regional development agenda.

The invited presenters are Chief Statisticians of their respective countries (tbc – Malaysia and Palestine) with efforts in transforming their NSSs to become data culture-oriented and Heads of international and regional intergovernmental statistics and multilateral financial institutions (tbc – GCCStat, IsDB, and SESRIC) with a mandate, among others, to coordinate statistical cooperation and conduct statistical activities in their respective regions.

The global statistical community has recognized the need in leveraging the role played by data as it is the basis for evidence-based decision-making processes. In that regard, the official statistics-producing national agencies need to be equipped with a “data culture” as the core objective of collecting, collating, processing, and disseminating data is to reach better decisions. Accordingly, “data culture is decision culture”.

However, instilling the data culture is not an easy feat and a never-ending journey as the world and circumstances around us continue uninterruptedly to evolve. The experiences to be shared by the participating NSOs will shed light on their journey for forming the data culture by not only manifesting their commitment to making data the main ingredient for better decisions but also maintaining a continuous, informed conversation with high-level decision-makers in their respective countries. On the other hand, the presentations/interventions of the participating regional and multilateral organizations will enrich this IPS by informing the attendees about their contributions to the efforts of their respective member countries for instilling the data culture.

Organiser: Dr Ahmad Hussein 

Chair: Dr. Atilla Karaman 

Speaker: Mr. Nasser Saleh Al Mohdi

Speaker: Dr Mohd Uzir Mahidin 

Speaker: Dr Areef Suleman 

Speaker: Zehra Zumrut SELCUK