Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) continues to focus on its mandate to provide credible statistics to guide South Africa’s push for a better life for its citizens.

Priorities for Stats SA include maintaining basis statistics which, according to Minister in the Presidency for Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, form the foundation of any national statistics system.

She detailed that Stats SA, through the production of over 250 publications and reports yearly, provided critical information to government, businesses, investors, workers and the public on the state of the economy in order to facilitate informed decision-making.

“Over the past ten years, the organisation has invested a lot of time and effort in raising the quality and proficiency of economic and social statistics,” she said in the Stats SA’s Budget Vote.

Stats SA will be undertaking a key project, which relates to measuring the economic value of environmental resources, with the South National Biodiversity Institute.

The project forms part of an international pilot programme involving the United Nations, the European Union, Brazil, China, India and Mexico to develop appropriate valuation methods.

The Minister further said an integrated indicator framework had been developed that aligned policy agendas at global, continental and national level as the basis of what needs to be measured in the national statistics system.

“These indicators will provide a clear basis for understanding the problem statement to be addressed in planning, as well as monitoring progress and evaluating results, and will form the bedrock of the information contained in the central repository that will be housed in the Department of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation (DPME),” she explained.

Stats SA and the DPME, she added, were working jointly on the initiative of the repository in a manner that would “guarantee that the DPME discharged its policy mandate without corroding Stats SA’s independence.”

Dlamini-Zuma also stated that there was a demand to think differently about the future, owing to the world being on the cusp of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

To answer these demands, Stats SA is transforming the collection of data from a paper-based approach to digital collections. To ensure that quality is not compromised, this process is being phased in over time.

During 2018/19, Stats SA is aiming to roll out the digital data collection solution for all household surveys, which Dlamini-Zuma said would generate efficiency savings over the medium term.

The digitalisation of work methods would assist the organisation in delivering faster, smarter and more cost effectively.

Dlamini-Zuma stated that conducting a population census was the biggest statistical survey any country and national statistics agency could undertake.

“Planning for South Africa’s next population census, which is scheduled for 2021, will start in 2018/19. Census 2021 will be the first of its kind in South Africa to be conducted using an electronic data collection methodology, such as computer-assisted personal interviews.”

This, she added, would improve the quality of the data collected and reduce the time lag between data collection and dissemination of results.

Stats SA would also be delivering an Amended Statistics Act that would drive statistical reform in the country, with particular emphasis on statistical coordination, statistical geography and the data revolution, as well as a State-wide statistical service and institutional arrangements.

Coordination between organs of State was essential for consistency and efficiency in the statistical system, Dlamini-Zuma averred.

This Act, she explained, provided for the statistician-general to participate in international statistical activities and build relations with international statistical players.

“South Africa continues to contribute to the continental integration agenda and to the improvement of the African statistical system based on the African Charter on Statistics and the Strategy for Harmonisation of Statistics in Africa,” she said.

In addition, Dlamini-Zulu highlighted that Stats SA was in the forefront of initiatives aimed at shaping the future of statistics in response to the global post-2015 development agenda, the Africa Agenda 2063 and the data revolution.

“Stats SA provides the numbers that should help policymakers lead the country out of the valley of darkness,” she concluded.