NBS in new plan to make ‘outside statistics official’

Dar es Salaam. The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) engages other statistics stakeholders to discuss how they can put the use of big data (data from different sources which are not official) into perspective.

Speaking during a meeting with stakeholders, the country’s Chief Statistician, Dr Albina Chuwa said the discussions come after directives they received in the 51st meeting of the world statistics commission by the United Nations.

“…we were given directives to find other sources which will help us to organize other traditional sources of data in the country” she said adding that the aim to these discussions is to bring knowledge to people, to create guidance and regulations which will officiate data from other sources. According to her, by collecting this information they can easily be used by stakeholders in achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the local National Development Plan (NDP-FYDP).

Tanzania Data Lab (dLab) representative Charles Bundu said as stakeholders their role is to describe the meaning of big data, on which it can be understood by considering seven criteria. Mentioning, “volume of data, the rate of preparing them, variety, value, accuracy, value and visualization”.

Mr Bundu who is also a Data Science Advisor in dLab said another crucial thing is to identify sources of data which mainly comes from organizations, machine generated or people generated.

For her part, Dr Dina Machuve of the Mandela Institute believed that engagement of stakeholders especially academicians is vital in the point that they can share how NBS can improve personnel to deal with big data.

“... We can help NBS to build manpower to handle big data - and also as an academic institution we conduct many researchers which are important and can be shared with the public,’’ she said adding that, by this move, many academic researches will be put to use.