Africa Statistics Day: UBOS to hold Symposium over food security

By Moses Oketayot

Kampala – Uganda, will this week join other African countries in commemorating ‘Africa statistics day’. This day was designated in 1990, by ministers responsible for finance and economic planning in Morocco.

The main purpose of the day is to create public awareness on the importance of statistics in all aspects of social and economic life.

The annual event that is celebrated every 18th of November and UBOS on Monday commenced a series of activities that will climax on Friday as the official day for the celebration.

The theme for this is year is, “Strengthening data systems by modernizing the production and use of agricultural statistics: informing policies with a view to improving resilience in agriculture, nutrition, and food security in Africa”

Speaking to journalists earlier in the day, the deputy executive director UBOS, Godfrey Nabongo said that statistics is a discipline that is managed and coordinated together with the Uganda Statistical society (USS), and during such celebrations USS partners with UBOS.

He explained that this year’s celebrations will be a bigger program for the week in preparation to launch the national housing and population census.

Nabongo added that Africa statistics day comes at a time when the bureau has a lot of data to share in; modernising statistical production, agriculture, digitising, partnerships and partner arrangements.

Nabongo conclusively said that this will help to plan going forward to hold others accountable, demand services and service delivery.

Kaudah Aliziki Lubega, the director for economic statistics used the same occasion to explain the drop in the inflation index.

According to Lubega, although there were effects of Covid-19 across the globe, the country registered 4.7% annual growth. She explained that was due to a political system that softened the management of the pandemic that helped in managing the purchasing index and hence growth of the manufacturing sector.

She explained that the current inflation registered a double digit index of 10.7% by the end of October.

Meanwhile, James Wokadala, the Dean, School of Statistics & Planning, Makerere University who also double as the Vice President of statistical society said that this year’s theme is rich in nature because it talks about one of the greatest necessities of man with a clear indication on nutrition and food security foreseeing a hunger free continent.

“I want to assume that when one feeds well one generate the capacity of growing a healthy mind and developing the right body system that is able to think and become innovative in a way that is competitive with all the rest of the world,” Wokadala said.

He added that the role of academia is to impart knowledge, conduct research as well as community service. “We cannot exercise these responsibilities to a hungry population. This is the reason as to why we should use agricultural statistics to inform better planning that can cause transformation in the entire agriculture production chain,” he added.

He further noted that in 2021, Makerere University School of Statistics together with Uganda Statistical Society was joined by other ministries, departments and agencies, development partners, researchers and students from other Universities in a public debate where several topics of interests were deliberated upon.

“We would like to believe that last year’s engagement was a worthwhile event where many of the participants were able to pick some lessons,” he added.

Wokadala, implored stakeholders to join together come Thursday, with support from UBOS and USS, to be at Makerere University for another debate on various issues related to the statistics profession.

“We are optimistic that such activities contribute to nurturing of students and researchers, practically in addition to classroom work. These kinds of events provide a platform for us to share knowledge and ideas about the theories and practical aspects of statistics,” he concluded