Proposal Description

The ability to incorporate new sources of data and to benefit from emerging technologies such as Web Technologies, Remote Data Collection methods, User Experience Platforms, and Trusted Smart Statistics will become increasingly important in producing and disseminating official statistics. The skills and competencies required to automate, analyze, and optimize such complex systems are often not part of the traditional skill set of most National Statistical Offices in Africa. The adoption of these technologies in obtaining official statistics requires new knowledge, methodologies, and the upgrading of the quality assurance framework, technology, security, privacy, and legal matters. However, there are methodological challenges and discussions among scholars about the diverse methodical confinement and the wide array of skills and competencies considered relevant for those working with the new sources of data at NSOs. The new sources of data provide opportunities to obtain timely, costless, higher precision, completeness, and less burden official statistics, and it can also be used to monitor the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) and its 169 indicators, especially where traditional data collections are missing. Currently in Africa, more than half of the SDG indicators have no or insufficient data to measure progress, the emerging new data source has the potential to address some important gaps. The rise in big data should change the context in which National Statistical Organizations (NSOs) in Africa operate. Given the new data sources' scope, timeliness, and resolution, and the potential efficiencies they offer in obtaining official statistics, thus, this invited paper session shall provide strategic vision, direction, and coordination on how NSOs in Africa can integrate new sources of data into official statistics without compromising the fundamental principle of official statistics (FPOS) thereby advancing official statistics in Africa.