By Asim Hussain
ISLAMABAD: Minister for Planning, Development, and Special Initiatives Ahsan Iqbal Thursday inaugurated the Data Dissemination KIOSK dashboard at Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) to l enable Policy Planners to have instant and updated information on data through customized dashboards for decision regarding development programs.
Dr. Naeem uz Zafar, Chief Statistician, PBS briefed the Minister as the world under “Digital Transformation” had become “Global Village” therefore “Data” was the “new currency for development” and availability of timely credible data in an interactive way is the need of the time.
Member Support Services, Muhammad Sarwar Gondal informed PBS have paradigm shift on data dissemination from unidimensional mode of fixed formats in to interactive customized dashboards: which provides open access to data with infographics along with comparison with previous years of several indicators as per requirement of users. In addition to it, PBS is also working on linking geographic database with information for producing heat maps with layering of other information like roads, railroads, rivers, schools, hospitals etc. for provision of updated information for proper planning.
Accordingly, using the wealth of data available with PBS, customized dashboards namely “Census Information Management System”, “Mouza Census Information Management System”, “PSLM & SDGs Information Management System” & “Price Management Information System” (PMIS), “GIS based system for COVID-19 Management”, “6th Population & Housing Census-2017”, “Pilot for “Digital Census-2022” and decision support systems namely “Decision Support System for Inflation” (DSSI) and “Evidence Based Decision System for Planning Commission/Provincial P&Ds” have been prepared, which are available online and also installed on Data Dissemination KIOSK for increasing Statistical literacy among data users and to create awareness about importance of data for informed decision making.
Therefore, PBS has installed its standalone dashboards and information management system in dissemination KIOSK at Ministry of Planning Development & Special initiatives (being the central ministry where all projects get approved).
This is the major step towards the modernization of PBS and data dissemination, it will work as confidence building measure between data users and producers and will result in evidence base decision making.
Further based on the requirements and feedback provided by the users, researchers and policy makers, the dashboards & information systems can be enriched. Secretary PD&SI highly appreciated PBS work and was of view that this will be a Step towards “Digital Pakistan” and “data driven policy making”.
The Member Support Services also presented the live demonstration of the Dashboards.
Ahsan Iqbal appreciated the PBS for developing the dashboards by using the data as an important currency of this digital age. This intervention of PBS is actually a start of open data revolution in the country which gauge up the economic growth, provide avenues to the researchers and plays pivotal role for job creation in the country.
By adopting the open data policy by facilitating the data users through such dashboards, businessmen can devise their business plans in the light of timely and credible data, researchers can explore different dimensions of the economy and Government functionaries may devise the transparent policy and plans to enhance the performance of government.
Ahsan highlighted that in past time lag of data was the main problem for evidence based policy making and also the data was remained stored in libraries, publications and reports without easy access of the data users. Pakistan can engage the best national and international researchers to explore the different avenues of the economy through which the growth of potential areas may be increased.
The Minister further directed that PBS must organize the workshops for the awareness and better utilization of data by having access through PBS KIOSK dashboards. For this purpose, seprate workshops may be arranged with Media, Academia and Federal Ministries to promote research and evidence based decision making. He also emphasized that data PBS must produce timely, reliable and credible data.
The Minister also highlighted that PBS is going to conduct the 7th Population & Housing census- 2022 digitally by adopting the best technologies of international standards and the data collected will be more credible and timely. He congratulated the Chief Statistician and whole PBS team for putting best efforts to develop dashboards with open data dissemination policy.
