Thinking beyond crisis: using the pandemic to advance high-quality, timely and inclusive data

The COVID-19 crisis has been an extraordinary challenge for national statistical systems. It has also been an opportunity to experiment with innovative data collection methods, explore new data sources and modernize ICT infrastructures to meet data demands for policymaking. Throughout that process, the importance of fully inclusive data was made evident. Moving forward, experiences during the pandemic can be used to inform the future of innovation in official statistics.

At the beginning of the crisis, more than 80 per cent of countries indicated they would be using phone surveys to collect data to measure the impact of COVID-19, and 37 per cent said they would be using web surveys – a significant increase from the pre-pandemic level. Administrative data, model-based estimates and non-traditional data sources – including phone call detail records, scanner data, social media, remote sensing and citizen-generated data – were all considered by countries.

In addition, many NSOs accelerated modernization of their ICT systems. In May 2021, 58 per cent of NSOs reported improvements in their overall ICT readiness over the previous six months. The main actions taken were deploying new collaboration software (85 per cent) and providing new equipment to staff (73 per cent). Another significant action for improving ICT readiness highlighted by NSOs was deploying new remote access tools such as virtual private network (VPN), Virtual Desktop and Mobile Office (61 per cent).

Collecting data on vulnerable population groups, such as migrants and persons with disabilities, is crucial in identifying the challenges they face and understanding who are being left behind. The use of innovative approaches, such as mobile phone surveys and artificial intelligence, should be accompanied by an assessment to ensure that innovations are not inadvertently excluding or harming the most vulnerable groups.

For example, the digital divide in mobile phone ownership and Internet access was cited as the main reason for not reaching certain population groups during the pandemic. Among countries surveyed, 39 per cent had difficulties adequately collecting data on migrants, 27 per cent had difficulties collecting data on older persons, and 27 per cent had difficulties with data on persons with disabilities. Moreover, traditional surveys that focus only on households leave out individuals living in institutions, such as nursing homes and other residential care facilities, homeless shelters and prisons, all of which have been heavily affected by the pandemic.

During the pandemic, partnerships were formed among government agencies, academic institutions, local governments, private businesses and civil society organizations to collect urgently needed data for policymaking. Such collaboration fostered new ideas and resources; it also increased the resulting data’s inclusivity, timeliness and utilization. National statistics offices played a stronger coordination role in many countries. The Statistics Institute of Jamaica, for example, partnered with the Ministry of Health and other experts in leading a committee to match data demand with available data needed to guide policy during the crisis. To help fill data gaps on the SDGs, National Bureau of Statistics of Kenya initiated partnerships with civil society organizations and integrated a set of quality criteria for citizen-generated data in its newly released Kenya Statistical Quality Assurance Framework.

Despite all the effort, NSOs from many countries felt they could do better in coordinating work within the national data ecosystem. Globally, only 17 per cent of countries surveyed felt that their coordination within the data ecosystem was satisfactory. The satisfaction level varied by income level: it averaged 25 per cent in high-income countries but only 8 per cent in low- and lower-middle-income countries.

The pandemic placed unprecedented demands on NSOs around the world. In addition to setting the gold standard for data quality within a country, these offices were expected to take the lead in correcting the abundance of misinformation and disinformation circulating about the impact of COVID-19. To do so, NSOs needed to relay their findings to different data users through new and more traditional approaches to outreach. However, surveys indicated major gaps in the approaches used depending on the income level of a country. The use of newer, more innovative approaches, such as social media, publication programmes targeted to specific user groups, seminars, eLearning platforms, live chat sessions and podcasts, was favoured by higher-income countries, while low- and lower-middle-income countries favoured more traditional approaches to user engagement. These included press conferences, traditional media appearances, general awareness campaigns, presentations, conferences and launch events. These findings signal an area for collective action by the statistical community. The opportunity is ripe to take advantage of modern communication channels and produce tailored support and data products to reach different user groups.

During the pandemic, 40 per cent of NSOs saw data collection costs rise, while government funding for 48 per cent of NSOs was cut back. In sub-Saharan Africa, 61 per cent of countries saw these costs rise, while 71 per cent saw a drop in government funding and 59 per cent saw a drop in donor funding for NSOs. This trend was corroborated by an analysis of official development assistance for data and statistics, which showed that funding for many basic data activities was quickly deprioritized at the beginning of the pandemic. NSOs in two thirds of countries eligible for borrowing from the International Development Association (IDA) also experienced either moderate or severe delays in budget disbursement at the beginning of the 2021 fiscal year.

Over the next three years, NSOs in most IDA countries are expecting to face significant funding shortages for targeted programmes from development aid providers. Over two thirds (69 per cent) of countries surveyed identified business and agricultural censuses as the area that will face the most significant funding shortages, followed by population and housing censuses (56 per cent) and household surveys (52 per cent). In terms of policy sectors that will require additional support over this time period, health statistics was identified as a top priority by 76 per cent of IDA countries.

The last two years have seen a major blow to the world's economy and people, and lower-income countries were hit particularly hard. Investing in data capacities and data partnerships to leave no one behind, build trust and fill data gaps to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals must be a priority for national governments and the international community if countries are to rely upon evidence-based policy responses to emerge stronger from the crisis and face the unknown challenges ahead.