/ 16 September 2011

The head of the nation’s count

The Head Of The Nation's Count

Pali Lehohla is 53 years, 11 months and six days old. That’s the type of exact response you get when you ask South Africa’s first statistician general a question. This is a man who lives and breathes data and statistics.

Appointed in 2000, Lehohla heads up Statistics South Africa (Stats SA), the country’s statistical agency. “The organisation provides official statistics through which the state and the private sector can identify issues, plan programmes that address them, monitor implementation and, in the case of the state, monitor the impact on society,” said Lehohla.

Stats SA collates monthly, quarterly and annual social and economic statistics. A set of benchmark statistics is produced every five years. These include the income and expenditure survey and the national census — which falls in 2011 and will be the third in post-apartheid South Africa’s history.

“There has been a lot of improvement with Census 2011, especially around processes,” said Lehohla. “This is to mitigate the risks that have been associated with previous censuses and we believe that a single-digit undercount is possible.” An undercount refers to people who are missed in the process, skewing the results and making figures inaccurate.

Lehohla said that knowledge gathered from the census is essential for decision-makers, allowing them to understand and manage the spatial and temporal dynamics of economic, demographic, social, environmental and political development in the country. However, knowledge and understanding are only possible where accurate statistical data and information exist over a period of time. Census data provide the most significant input to that end.

Lehohla’s world of statistics
“I have always been in this environment,” said Lehohla. Prior to his appointment, he was chief director for demography and surveys at Stats SA, where he was responsible for South Africa’s first post-apartheid population census. Lehohla’s work experience totals 24 years and spans the African continent. When he was just nine years old and his father bought an ox during the time of the Lesotho national census, he named the animal Census.

Stats SA is widely recognised for its work, methodology and outputs. The organisation hosted the 57th Session of the International Statistical Institute in South Africa in 2009. Lehohla considers this a career highlight and an acknowledgment that Stats SA is an organisation that can be trusted and relied upon. This year, Lehohla was elected vice-president of the institute.

The statistician general has been chairing the United Nations Statistics Commission for two years, as well as the Africa Symposium on Statistical Development since 2006. “Statistics is being taken a great deal more seriously in Africa,” says Lehohla. “In 2006, the Symposium evaluated steps that African countries need to take to prepare for the 2010 round of population and housing censuses and this is the first time in history that all African countries, bar Somalia, are undertaking a census.”

Lehohla says that conflict-ridden and post-conflict countries consistently deal with the problem of transparency. Without knowledge and statistics about a country, constituents are uninformed, which creates a barrier to peace. He views statistics as an important instrument in furthering the peace process.

The statistician general also chairs the Friends of the Economic Commission for Africa, which is geared towards statistical development in Africa; the Census Millennium Development Project, aiming to harmonise the Southern African Development Community censuses; and StatCom-Africa. “Stats SA is a credible statistical force that is globally recognised and there are few statistics forums where South Africa is not a leading participant,” said Lehohla.

From crises to statistics
The 2008 global financial and economic crisis illustrated a need to monitor a broad range of indicators in an independent and non-partisan manner. “History shows that policy reform often emerges when there is a crisis,” said Lehohla. “The nationalaccounts framework, one of the major contributors to the evolution of statistical methodologies, is associated with the economic crisis that caused World War II.” Other issues, beyond financial and economic, have emerged and created a demand for statistical information to deal with the challenges. These include global environmental concerns, gender and equality, and global governance.

Vision for the future
“Public statistics can invite debate, so it’s important to know that there are scientific methods of data production and a legal shield — the Statistics Act — that provides an environment ensuring professional autonomy so that the production process is free of political interference,” said Lehohla. The organisation follows the International Monetary Fund Special Data Dissemination Standards, among other international standards and best practices, and falls under the South African Statistics Act of 1999. The Act draws from the 10 United Nations Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics, which advocate the autonomy of statistics production based on scientific methods, transparency and the confidentiality of information.

The vision for Stats SA reads, “The South Africa I know, the home I understand.” Lehohla said that the organisation’s work involves generating information that others can use and understand in order to make informed choices. He drew a distinction between knowing and understanding: “It’s not enough to know about the statistics — it’s important to understand and use them properly. When you talk about a country, this needs to be entrenched in scientific information, where everyone, and the country’s leadership in particular, is grounded in the evidence of facts and figures.”

To further the accessibility of the statistics produced, Stats SA starts with understanding “the customer” and his needs — who uses statistics, what for and why? In this case, the primary customer is the state. Lehohla said the data’s context is also important and needs to be factored in to produce accurate statistics. To understand the particular context they are working in, statisticians and senior management undergo training in policy. One of the training programmes is about urban and regional planning so that the challenges that municipalities face can be understood.

Government-wide initiative
A key focus area is to implement the National Statistics System as prescribed in section 14 of the Statistics Act. This is in line with world trends that seek to raise the evidential basis of statistics through administrative records. This initiative moves across the state as it involves administrative records. “It’s about quality management of the production of statistical units,” said Lehohla. “Administrative processes and records generate data, such as knowing the number of passports issued, to whom and when. These processes shouldn’t be affected by human emotion but need to be disciplined, structured and quality-managed. It’s about the right systems, the right procedures and people who are trained properly.” It’s a mammoth task that is happening simultaneously with Census 2011.

Growing Stats SA
Stats SA is working on succession planning through building capacity in the organisation. Training programmes include bursaries for further qualifications that benefit the organisation. Lehohla said that a number of people have been empowered to work on almost all aspects within Stats SA, even though they have varying qualifications. “The organisation is still in its juvenile stage — a well-established statistics agency usually has people working there for 30 to 40 years because of the nature of the environment,” said Lehohla. There has also been a focus on knowledge management as a methodology to transfer knowledge and keep it within the organisation.

Statistics is a complex environment. It’s driven by intellectual capability and scientific and administrative processes, and is very technologically intensive. It also relies heavily on logistics. Imagine the logistics of sending 20-million questionnaires to 15-million households with the help of 166?000 people. Following this massive effort, the information needs to be gathered, scanned and processed so that it can fit on to a DVD. “Statistics also interfaces with the political system intensely. In fact, ‘statistics’ is a Greek word meaning ‘facts about the state’,” said Lehohla. “Engagement needs to be managed effectively as statistics cannot be political.” To be a statistician general you have to excel in all these areas with equal intensity.

Working the numbers

  • The Census 2011 count occurs from October 10 to 31 2011;
  • The census is dependent on access and response from everyone in South Africa;
  • It is a legal obligation to participate;
  • When information is processed, names and identifying details will be discarded after quality checks;
  • Stats SA can guarantee that the information is only used for statistical purposes; and
  • Credible enumerators (census counters) will have gone through stringent security checks.

This article originally appeared in the Mail & Guardian newspaper as an advertorial supplement