Statistics is a conduit of trust, and only those who can be trusted should be its stewards and custodians. Your excellencies, I am humbled by this special privilege and invitation to represent my country and address this 48th Session of the UN Statistics Commission (UNSC) on the occasion of its 70th anniversary.
On this the 70th anniversary of the Statistics Commission I will assert that statistics is a conduit of trust.
In that regard I locate this Commission which is a steward and custodian of global statistics in the midst of its four related sister commissions that are a year older and one which is 45 years younger.
When this august body, the UNSC was established in 1947, it joined the premiere infrastructure whose architectural design is to focus the troubled global community towards world progress, peace and prosperity.
The design is about our gregarious being and our egalitarian status, thus revealing the imperative of human beings being human. In 1946, ahead of this Commission, Social Development, Status of Women, and Population and Development Commissions, were established - all congregating to bring trust in society.
Several expert bodies accompanied these commissions, yet the prospect of being human remained remote. Without thinking and acting not only on people but the compulsion to act on the planet for peace and prosperity made this prospect impossible.
Thus the Commission on Sustainable Development was born in December 1992. No other commission has been as catalytic and trouble steering. No other has been effort-uniting across the dispersed statistical and information community.
The Commission on Sustainable Development with accompanying Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) holds the key to a sustainable world, but only with statistics. This puts paid to the maxim that statistics is too important to be left to statisticians. No one dare challenge me when I say that statistics is a conduit of trust.
Statistician-General Pali Lehohla addresses the UN Statistics Commission on its 70th anniversary. He delivered an invited address as one of the two longest-serving statisticians-general at the body. Photo: Rick Bajornas
What then has South Africa learnt from the Statistics Commission?
To date, statistical practice in South Africa boasts 102 years of formality. This served different historical epochs under different names. Its formalisation took root on July 14, 1914, when the Statistics Act was promulgated.
Tumultuous
However, this century-long history was tumultuous. Its repugnant aroma is of 300 years of pernicious colonial rule and 48 years of brutal apartheid.
In 1974 South Africa was thrown out of the General Assembly and associated activities of the UN, such as the Statistics Commission which handles the conduit of trust: statistics.
This was because South Africa undermined all the principles establishing the four Commissions.
In 1994 a new society that was born needed a conduit of trust, statistics and statistical methods to plan and build its future. Where then could we ask for help? The global statistics system of course.
The UNSC embraced and provided us with the stewardship in technical, methodological and statistical frameworks for development of our statistics system.
The 10 fundamental principles of official statistics became our lodestar for practice and for framing our modern statistics law enacted in 1999. The adoption of the IMF Special Data Dissemination Standards established in the aftermath of world economic shocks helped transform our statistical landscape and fiscal discipline.
The UNSC was a resourceful ideas market. Bilateral relations with countries were possible. Prominent among these were north-south relations we established with Statistics Sweden from 1995 and Statistics Canada from 2002. In the south it was with the Australia Bureau of Statistics from 1995.
The Handbook on Official Statistics shaped our organisational structure and practice, especially for managing in a political environment.
Joining the City Group and UNSC Committee structures was invaluable, the accompanying camaraderie unforgettable, the peer learning enjoyable with delightful and remarkable results. Only a conduit of trust allows such possibilities: Statistics is a conduit of trust.
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Locally, our statistics system is juvenile and in renewal. It boasts juvenile officials who have developed quickly. The institution thus holds promise to succeed long into the future, because of its youthful but professional workforce. In that regard without fear of any contradiction we are playing a leading role on our continent of Africa and we contribute generously globally. The birth of African Symposium for Statistical Development is in Statistics South Africa.
The Commission, through your subsidiary structures, entrusted Statistics South Africa with hosting the 57th session of the International Statistics Institute in 2009 as well as the very first UN World Data Forum hosted seven weeks ago.
You entrusted us to pioneer this very first UN World Data Forum in January this year. We stand ready for more and in October this year we shall be hosting the 28th session of the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population.
South Africa hosted the World Summit on Sustainable Development in 2002, which birthed the Sustainable Development Goals.
We did all these in appreciation of you joining us in a relentless war of setting ourselves free from ignorance and poverty, inspired by the demon of colonialism and driven by the monster of apartheid.
Today we march in tandem with you powered by a conduit of trust - statistics. And indeed among any 10 countries discussing matters statistics global, you will find Statistics South Africa.
We do this not because we sniff for more work, but because we owe this burden of responsibility to the conduit of trust - statistics.
This magnificent body, the UNSC, has honoured us as trusted stewards for this conduit of trust: statistics.
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Looking ahead we see difficulties. And being realistic with our current situation I muse to quote President Yeltsin who once said this year is better than next year.
Nobody would have foreseen big data 20 years ago and this uncertain future is going to be dominated by the internet of things with more information, quicker and more variable. This includes fake news, alternative facts and post-truths.
Fisher’s frequentists, who are the bulwark of our current crop of official statisticians, now have to make peace with Bayesian statisticians in order to overcome the new challenges of big data.
Remain relevant
We shall have to reinvent ourselves to lead and to remain relevant and trusted stewards and custodians of the conduit of statistics.
To be the pre-eminent metaphorical medicine men and women delivering high quality statistical and information systems to the world of sustainable development, a world that is humane where human beings begin being human, we shall have to integrate with locational attributes and be expert in managing technology.
Understanding politics without being partisan are our strategic assets and in communicating this conduit of trust - statistics - lies our success and grave responsibility. The future lies in partnerships and not a monopoly-like ivory tower of knowledge.
Let us take a leaf from the late Professor Hans Rosling, who implored us as national statisticians that we should reveal the beauty of statistics. Reveal the intrinsic value of this conduit, which is trust.
He further said that unless we measure the effectiveness of our communication on the SDGs, we shall have failed the world. To elevate the legacy Hans Rosling left us, indeed it is in our hands to communicate measurement. It is in our hands not to be forgotten, but to be remembered as agents of change that were entrusted with stewardship and custodianship of and for the conduit of trust: statistics 70 years from now.
In closing I leave you with a quotation which should make us aware that “You can change without growing, but you can’t grow without changing.” We are implored to grow the trust levels in society. Only through evidence, scientific statistical facts, a conduit of trust - statistics - can this be achieved.
May the UNSC, the steward and custodian of the conduit of trust - statistics - continue to trustworthily serve the people and planet for peace and prosperity.
Dr Pali Lehohla is South Africa’s Statistician-General and Head of Statistics South Africa. He delivered this invited address as one of the two longest serving statisticians-general serving at the UNSC on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the 48th Session of the UNSC in New York yesterday.