The OECS Secretariat is strengthening its capacity to utilize statistics in its various programmes and assist Member States make greater use of statistics in decision making and policy formulation. 

Staff at the Secretariat, spent January 26th to 30th, receiving training in the software DevInfo which provides for the collation, presentation and dissemination of statistical data. The training is being conducted in collaboration with UNICEF and the CARICOM Secretariat.

The DevInfo system is being developed across the OECS in response to long standing concerns about major gaps in the storage and dissemination of statistics in Member States and the limit this puts on the ability of Member States to make informed, well researched policy decisions and recommendations on critical human development issues. The system provides Member States with the platform to step up storage and dissemination of reliable and accurate statistical data. This now takes on added significance  as Member States move towards an OECS Economic Union.

The system will also reduce the difficulties experienced by the Secretariat in getting accurate and timely data for important regional projects such as production of the OECS Development Strategy, and the OECS Human Development Report, whose 2008 edition  focuses on “Economic and Social Justice, Youth and Human Development”.

The system will provide for the establishment of an OECS repository knowledge platform.  It will support the establishment of a dedicated OECS Research and Statistics Unit to service the data collection, analysis and research needs of the entire Secretariat. 

In remarks to the opening ceremony,  the Secretariat’s Director, Social and Sustainable Development Division, Dr. James Fletcher, expressed strong support for the DevInfo system. He stressed the significant roll it can play in moving Member States away from using sometimes using conviction and belief to empirical data for policy decision making.  He also expected the system to help Member States feed more accurate, up-to-date data into the Secretariat’s regional productions, including the Human Development Report and the Development Strategy. 

Dr. Fletcher also welcomed the flexibility of the DevInfo system, saying the capacity, for example, to customize its interface to geographical regions, will allow decision makers to better understand the relationships between geographical areas and key indicators and consequently, better target their interventions. 

CARICOM’s Project Director for Regional Statistics, Dr. Philomen Harrison, in remarks presented on her behalf to the workshop, noted that the system had been introduced to the OECS Member States of St. Lucia, Dominica and St. Vincent and the Grenadines, along with Barbados and Guyana. She praised the system for its capacity to promote the use of statistics by major users such as policy-makers, researchers, students, the private sector, NGOs and others.  Ms. Violet Warnery of UNICEF also addressed the opening and noted the agency’s continued commitment to this important initiative.