ISLAMABAD: “Governments should make efforts to collect data and share it with the nation, to ensure that evidence based planning becomes possible,” said Dr Vaqar Ahmed, Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI) Deputy Executive Director, at an event on Monday.

Dr Ahmed was speaking to participants at a seminar titled ‘Data Gaps and Evidence Based Policy Making in Pakistan’ at SDPI.

Discussing the importance of data collection, Dr Ahmed said in 2007, the decision to carry out a census was made and even funds were allocated for the purpose in the Public Sector Development Programme. However, it was later abandoned, possibly for political reasons.

“In 2011, after the 18th Amendment, provinces, in particular Punjab and Sindh, demanded statistics on their contribution towards the GDP (gross domestic product). Calculations were done by the Federal Bureau of Statistics but the data was never released because of possible controversy,” he said.

Speakers at a conference call for improved public data collection

Citing another example, Dr Ahmed said that in 2013, various stakeholders urged the PML-N government to release the poverty head count ratio but fearing criticism, the government decided to use old data.

World Food Programe Representative Dr Khizar Ashraf said almost half of the children in Pakistan, close to 45 per cent are stunted because of malnutrition and no reliable nutrition database exists.

“The last survey was carried out in 2011 and even that contained deficiencies such as no data being collected for districts,” he said.

Dr Ashraf said that surveys are funded by donors are only carried out in fields which interest the donor, which leaves huge gaps in data available.

“Even if the data is collected, the public sector’s capacity to utilise it is very limited,” he said.

Academy of Educational Planning and Management (AEPAM) Director General Muhammad Khan said that even if more funding is allocated towards the education sector, millennium development goals cannot be achieved.

“This is because we do not have reliable data, especially on the private sector. However, my department is ready to share data and facilitate researchers.

Nongovernmental organisation (NGO) Alif Ailaan’s representative Saman Naz said that her organisation works in education sector where the unavailability of reliable data is a major obstacle.

“Almost 39 per cent students study at private schools but no data on these schools is abailble. We do not even know how many private schools exist in different area,” she said.

Ms Naz said that another problem is the discrepancies in the results of different surveys conducted in the same area. For example, she said, the percentage of out of school children is reported differently in different surveys.

Dr Lubna Shahnaz from Planning Commission said evidence based research is key to development.

“The Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) does not have information regarding labourers at the district level or data of poverty at district levels. But such information is extremely important to policymaking and the PBS should frequently meet with stakeholders who use data,” she said.

Representative from the ministry of finance, Nohman Ishtiaq, said data collection and preservation at the district level must be improved.

Published in Dawn, July 28th, 2015

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