The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has called for the recognition of the relevance of data, especially in achieving government’s key policies like the Economic and Recovery Growth Plan (ERGP) and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) without lapses.
The Director General of NBS, Yemi Kale, said this while speaking at the Data Africa first international conference with the theme: “Data Acquisition, Preservation and Warehousing for Education, Market and Development”, where he emphasised why data was key in assisting government in assessing whether its policies were making any impact in the society.
Kale said the importance of statistics in developmental policies could not be over-emphasised as it played an important role in forecasting, planning and evaluation of government policies at all levels, and that the inability of government to make statistical data a priority in policy formation and execution was one of the reasons why its economic policies were not yielding the needed result.
Kale, who was represented by the Director, Corporate Planning of NBS, Simon Harry, also called on Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) to take administrative statistics serious in order to drive government’s economic policies to the next level.