As the region celebrated Caribbean Statistics Day on October 15, 2015, the Caricom Secretariat in its address to mark the occasion urged member states to invest in the improvement of statistics as it is a vital tool.
According to a Caricom press release, the Caribbean community celebrated the day under the theme “Better Data Better Lives” and Secretary General of Caricom, Irwin La Rocque said, “statistics is an integral part in ensuring an improved quality of life of the peoples of our region.”
Further, La Rocque said the main purpose of the observance in the Caribbean is to raise the profile of statistics in the community in order to create more awareness of its production, dissemination and use in decision making. And as such he urged member states “to provide the investment required to improve the production of statistics to support and guide sustained economic and social development of our community.”
It is the seventh year of the region’s celebration of Caribbean Statistics Day, the release said, and as a tool, statistics are used in traditional areas such as population, housing census and literacy surveys, and non-traditional areas, one such is monitoring of the goals and targets of the United Nations-2015 Development Agenda. The second observance of World Statistics Day will take place on October 20, 2015.
