On August 5, Cepei, together with the National Statistics Office of the Dominican Republic and with the support of the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data and the Chamber of Commerce and Production of Santiago (Dominican Republic), held the event “Building a Roadmap to strengthen public-private partnerships to accelerate the use of private data.”
The meeting, which took place in Santo Domingo (Dominican Republic), was attended by National Statistical Offices (NSOs) from Latin America and the Caribbean and other stakeholders. Its objective was to join efforts to build a joint path capable of accelerating the use of private data in official statistical production and sustainable development.
The production of official statistics increasingly requires the participation of the private sector, whose data production is growing at an unprecedented rate, as well as the technologies for its use, such as big data and artificial intelligence. Some of the actions of the private sector in this production process include:
- Companies answering economic surveys.
- They also leave data in administrative records, such as those of chambers of commerce or tax and customs authorities.
- They co-produce statistical operations.
During the workshop, participants shared their experiences, lessons learned, the challenges they identified along the way, and the solutions they found to strengthen their data ecosystems through partnerships with the private sector.
This is of great importance. The regional NSOs’ experience in these processes is an invaluable asset in building roadmaps to accelerate the use of private data to increase the supply of official statistics, innovation and productivity in the data-driven economy, and risk prevention.
Public-private partnerships key to the production of official statistics
Within the framework of this space and this critical moment for the data revolution, Cepei presented its working paper “Private Sector Data for National Statistical Production.” This paper reviews opportunities and obstacles for using private data, gathers analysis and experiences of NSOs and the private sector, and proposes valuable actions for accelerating national statistical production.
The document is part of the Data, SDGs, and Private Sector initiative, which investigates how to improve the monitoring and reporting of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through public-private partnerships. This link has been built based on quality standards and helps design the rules of the game and the mechanisms needed to accelerate sustainable development.
Some of their main findings were:
- Leveraging the knowledge and experience of the NSOs is critical to gathering information on the actions carried out by companies in terms of data.
- It is key to coordinate with the private sector and among the NSOs in the systematic characterization of existing potentials and obstacles to using private data at the national and regional levels.
- The experience of the international statistical system should be used in designing new generic frameworks so that countries can save time in creating institutional frameworks capable of accelerating the use of private data.
Ensuring sustainable development implies enhancing the use of private sector data in producing statistics. Therefore, it is time to strengthen and promote partnerships between the private and public sectors in Latin America and the Caribbean to increase technological capabilities and the production of official statistics and, in turn, accelerate the possibilities of more accurately monitoring the implementation of the SDGs. This is undoubtedly the basis for evidence-based decision-making.