Africa-Press – Botswana. National Statistics Office (NSO) officials from Malawi are in the country for a five-day benchmarking exercise that will end on January 26.
The officials are keen to learn on the methodologies used to develop official statistics on censuses and surveys.
Welcoming the delegation on January 22, Statistics Botswana statistician general, Dr Burton Mguni expressed gratitude that the delegation chose them for the benchmarking mission.
Giving a brief background of their mandate, Dr Mguni explained that they operated under the Ministry of Finance and that they had a staff complement of about 220 people.
He said they were charged with coordinating the national statistical system, and that they covered various aspects of economic and social statistics as well as cartography.
Dr Mguni also briefed the delegates that they conducted a census every 10 years, and released summary headlines on various demographic and socio-economic indicators.
In addition, he said they were modernising and automating their processes, adding that they used a computer personal interview system to conduct all surveys and that data came through the Internet from servers for easier and faster editing, summarising and coding.
He said they were also working on increasing the range and speed with which they provided publications and periodicals annually, quarterly and monthly.
For her part, the commissioner of statistics at NSO Malawi, Ms Lizzie Chikoti, who is also leader of the delegation, said their objective and expected outcome was to build the capacity of their staff and to learn from Botswana how they conducted censuses and surveys. She also said they would explore how her office could work with Statistics Botswana in the spirit of south-south cooperation.
Ms Chikoti added that they wanted to establish technologies used during implementation, which data was disseminated, challenges faced and how political leaders were roped in to support the cause of statistics.
She said the exchange of ideas, enhancing partnerships and learning from each other was also their objective. “Our colleagues here are ahead and we are looking forward to learning more on how you conduct your census and surveys,” she said.
Ms Chikoti also said they would meet local stakeholders who support the production of official statistics such as Ministry of Finance officials.
The five member delegation consists of the deputy director for demography and social statistics, Mr Isaac Chirwa, principal statistician and labour force survey coordinator, Mr Richard Phiri, principal statistician and data manager, Mr Lusungu Chisesa and principal statistician and gender statistics coordinator, Ms Glory Mshali.
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