Boost for young statistician

“IT’S a boost for me,” says young and enthusiastic Statistician Josephat Tako.

Young Tako works as an assistant statistician within the Social Demography Unit in the National Statistics Office (NSO), Ministry of Finance & Treasury (MoFT).

Recently he attended and successfully completed a second group training programme on Improving Capability in Producing Official Statistics for Monitoring the Post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) held in Chiba, Japan.

The programme runs from August 21 to December 15, 2017.

It was conducted by the United Nation Statistical Institute for Asia and Pacific (UN SIAP), in alliance with the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC) of the government of Japan.

The training involved theory and hands-on (practical) task with a total of 27 statisticians from 15 countries attended.

The participants are from; Asia & Pacific- Bangladesh, Ghana, Cameron, Congo, Indonesia, Kyrgyz-stan, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Malaysia, Myanmar, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tajikistan and Timor-Leste.

The training aims at strengthening the capacity of national statistical systems to produce data, apply statistical methods to produce official statistics and indicators and interpret and use these for monitoring progress in achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Young Tako said the programme is really a bonus for him as it help enhanced his statistical knowledge and skills.

“The training has offered me a great learning opportunity and experience.

“The lessons taught really boost my statistical knowledge to be more effective and efficient in serving the National Statistics Office (NSO) and the country as a whole,” he said.

Tako vowed to utilise the knowledge and skills acquired and help his colleagues in producing official statistics and indicators, interpret and use these for monitoring progress in SDGs and also to produce official statistics that would help policy-makers for future planning.

He said what interest him is the fieldwork/field study based on the Japan household survey.

“I acquired much from the fieldwork.

“It enriched my skills and sure I got new experiences on Japan household survey and methods they used to collect official data.

“In fact, household survey is one of the main duty of the statistics office, as performed by statisticians.

“I believe if we could learn from Japan’s strategies, it would create a way forward for Solomon Islands with regards to improving and defining new strategy for the country’s data collection approaches.

“For me, the training is worthwhile and I am happy to say that I took all values as much as I could, not only about technical skill but also moral lessons.”

The programme also includes a field trip to Hokkaido Prefecture/Miyagi Prefecture from November 13 to 15, 2017 for all the participants.

The purpose of the outing is;

  • To increase participants’ knowledge on the statistical activities of the prefectural government offices and in particular, the field operations of the Family Income and Expenditure Survey, and
  • To enhance participants’ understanding of the role of statistics on the economic and social situation of the prefectures through the activities of manufacturing corporations/academic in Japan.

The field visit involves observation and making courtesy visits to the Japan Statistics Bureau and the Office of Policy Planning (Statistical Standards) of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications and the National Statistics Centre, industrial establishment, academic institutions, other Japan’s statistics divisions and have talks on Japanese Statistical System.

Meanwhile, Mr. Tako thanked UN SIAP in cooperation with JICA and the Japanese Government for the opportunity and for all the support rendered to him during the course of the training.

“As there is a global commitment to working towards achieving the SDGs under the slogan ‘No one left behind’, so I am hopeful that development partners including Japan will continue to support and cooperate with developing country like Solomon Islands to attain these goals and targets.”

Tako also expressed his sincere gratitude to the Government Statistician Douglas Kimi for the trust he has placed on him and the support the NSO rendered that makes his study programme a success.

–SINSO PRESS

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