I am pleased to greet you in the advent of Caribbean Statistics Day (CSD) 2024. CSD is commemorated in October every year, and this year mark’s its sixteenth iteration, thus marking a significant milestone, allowing for both reflection and projection. Today provides the statistical community, across the Caribbean the opportunity to further treat to the importance of its work in collecting, compiling and disseminating evidence-based data, to inform policy formulation and decision-making. In an ever-changing globally competitive ecosystem, the need for credible, timely and relevant data, is even more critical if the region is to be on the very cusp of a new transformational development agenda, that allows policymakers, businesses, households and the wider society to make informed decisions and policy.
This year’s theme,“Improving Lives Through Statistics, Strengthening and Innovating Together”, provides the perfect framework for the retooling needed of the sector, if Governments and the wider society are to meet the collective objective of providing a better life for our people.
There can be no doubt that the statistical community in the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) has made significant progress over the last 50 years, since the establishment of the Standing Committee of Caribbean Statisticians. By this mechanism, country data has been consolidated in various areas of economic, social and environmental statistics, facilitating national and regional statistics to inform policy decisions. Given today’s realties, data must also be used in treating to the way forward on some of the most critical challenges and associated opportunities of our generation. Whether that be in the understanding of our national and regional population trends; collection of data associated with resilience; building out of a climate-smart agricultural regional sector; future planning for educational demands and trends, or modalities which underscore the data needed for the Caribbean economy to be more globally competitive; data must be the back bone for the region’s forty to fifty year vision, and the road ahead.
Thus, statistics whilst steeped within the bounds of robust academic and technical frames, must also be part and parcel of the ordinary citizen’s reality, and therefore the call for statistical and data entities to engage their populations in a manner that can lead to greater engagement and ownership of the data and statistics. As seen around the globe, when used effectively it can ensure that our people create new opportunities for growth, development and prosperity.
This 16th Caribbean Statistics Day anniversary reminds us of the importance of good, reliable statistics in measuring progress in the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME), the flagship programme of our integration agenda. As CARICOM celebrates 50 years of promoting and supporting an integrated Caribbean Community that is inclusive, resilient and competitive, sharing in economic, social and cultural prosperity, the contributions of statistics in achieving this mandate must be recognized.
The main strategic goal for the current Barbados Statistical Service (BSS) is to transform the collection, dissemination and analysis of statistics into a fully integrated national statistical system that provides the basis of evidence for effective policymaking, monitoring and execution. Given the importance of statistics and data to Barbados, the Government is undertaking a robust modernization of the BSS, which will allow for our national statistical entity to treat to its core mandate using the latest global standards, whilst repositioning itself in the advent of data analytics.
This also requires for us to provide the nation with a modernized statistical legislative framework, particularly given the reality of the current laws being enacted in the 1950s, with a minor adjustment some thirty years later, in 1985. This must also treat to a fully integrated national statistical system. As a nation, we must however not only place premium in the modernization process, seemingly as the completion of a necessary tool in 21st century statistics, but of equal measure, the role that society must play in ensuring the requisite data is provided. As such, the response to national statistical entities must be paramount, if accurate data is to inform sound policy and decision making.
In conclusion, as we celebrate Caribbean Statistics Day 2024, the Government of Barbados uses this opportunity, as a call to action in Barbados and across the region, for us to recommit to the ideals of sounds statistical practices and data collection, buttressed by the constant modernization of the sector, with the singular pursuit of unlocking the true potential of the Caribbean’s socio-economic prowess.
Senator, The Honourable Chad Blackman, LLB, LLM, ACIarb
Minister – Ministry of Economic Affairs and Investment