Doha: The Planning and Statistics Authority (PSA) yesterday opened a two-day in-person and remote regional workshop titled “The Changing Role of Official Statistics in Qatar: Data Culture Matters” with international, regional and national participation.
The workshop discussed the changing role of the Official Statistics System in Qatar, in a bid to upgrade the National Statistical System (NSS) in line with data revolution and related sciences and technologies; such as the artificial intelligence in statistical applications, and the economy’s digitalisation in Qatar. This has led to radical changes in the nature and volume of data on social, economic and environmental developments.
President of the Planning and Statistics Authority H E Dr. Saleh bin Muhammad Al Nabit during 'The Changing Role of Official Statistics in Qatar: Data Culture Matters' workshop.
The workshop is organised in cooperation with the UN organisations operating in Qatar, and in coordination with UNSD, ESCWA, Qatar Charity, and Qatar Computing Research Institute at Hamad Bin Khalifa University. Notably, the workshop is attended by a great number of national experts working in the public and private sectors, universities, research centres and NGOs.
President of the Planning and Statistics Authority H E Dr. Saleh bin Muhammad Al Nabit said: “The generation of and demand for vast amounts of data in order to conduct analytics and forecasts related to market and investment conditions, and the use of such data in the field of policies and decision-making exceeds its traditional scope. Thus, data that is generated every day and everywhere via the use of social media, smart phones, GPS, other sensors, and spacecraft needs relentless efforts to be employed in the national development process. Furthermore, data sources are numerous and diverse, and the periodicity of data provision has accelerated, which requires us to take a position on their governance, to assume responsibility for overseeing, managing and providing them to users and to employ them in formulating policies and monitoring progress”.
In addition, Al Nabit pointed out that the availability of traditional and non-traditional statistics and data, and the availability of indicators of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, will contribute to the formulation of successful sectoral policies, and to the monitoring and control of their implementation, and will lead to the successful integration of the goals and objectives of the mentioned development agenda into sectoral policies of the Third National Development Strategy.
Besides, the PSA President also stressed the need for ministries, government agencies and the private sector to cooperate in building a modern system of highly credible data that provides the necessary databases for users in the public and private sectors, and for workers in the field of scientific research, innovation, market studies and other groups of society.
The workshop aims to shed light on the importance of the national data system, and to update it in order to meet the daily needs of emerging data and information, in order to achieve the prosperity and well-being of society. It also focuses on the role of PSA in governance processes, data stewardship, strategies preparation and the establishment of a new culture that relies on using data in decision-making, in support of the Third National Development Strategy, and in recognition of the importance of national partnership in the production, dissemination and use of statistics and data in evidence-based policies.
Moreover, the workshop will address many topics related to the importance of data and its use in multiple development sectors, the future processes of collection and management of data and its components, and the use of artificial intelligence in sustainable development, as well as some national, regional and international experiences.
The workshop, organised in partnership with various international, regional and national institutions, comes in response to the recommendations of the United Nations Statistical Commission at its 53rd session, regarding the new role that statistical agencies, including PSA, are supposed to play in the national supervision of the national data system, the development of its governance and the formulation of its strategy.
