Challenges and opportunities
There is increasing demand from policy and decision-makers for data that are more frequent, timely and granular. National Statistical Offices (NSOs) are increasingly exploring the use of big data and data science to meet data needs. At the same time, growing and evolving data requirements for monitoring national development plans and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) alongside budget constraints and declining response rates on traditional data collection methods, i.e., censuses and surveys, are also driving the increased use of data integration approaches for official statistics.
Technological advancements have made new data sources available and enabled official statisticians to produce statistics using more complex approaches. However, using these sources and methods requires a wide range of technical and institute Committee on Statistics for Asia and the Pacific of the Committee on Statistics, held in 2020, agreed to "feature big data for official statistics in its future work with an emphasis on sharing country research, experiences and good practices and facilitating capacity-building". At the same session, the Committee also agreed to "feature accounting for integrated statistics and analysis in its future work with an emphasis on sharing country research and experiences and facilitating the provision of technical assistance".
Our response
In response to these decisions, ESCAP, through the provision of training and capacity development support and the development of associated guides and knowledge products, are assisting NSOs in Asia and the Pacific to leverage innovative sources, tools and methods for the streamlined production and use of better, more timely and granular data for official statistics.
- Data Integration Community of Practice (DI-CoP); launched in April 2020, served as a collaborative ESCAP platform supporting data integration across Asia and the Pacific through virtual peer learning and innovation, until it concluded in December 2024.
Stats Cafe series
- Using Big Data to Measure the Nexus Between Environment and Gender in Asia and the Pacific, 10 April 2023
- Big Data partnership models, 30 August 2021
- Big Data Governance, 16 August 2021
- Machine Learning for Sentiment Analysis, 26 July 2021
- Mobile phone data for official statistics – addressing data accessibility, privacy, and regulatory issues, 5 April 2021
- Use of satellite data in statistical institutions, 15 March 2021
- Data Integration, 16 September 2020
- The Prospect of Big Data for Official Statistics in Asia and the Pacific, 17 August 2020
Related events/resources
- High-Level Seminar on Integration of Geospatial and Statistical Information, 28-30 November 2023, Bangkok, Thailand
- Regional Workshop on Web-scraping for Consumer Price Statistics, 16-20 September 2024, Bangkok, Thailand
- Regional workshop on MPD Processing and Analytics for Official Statistics, 29 July-2 August 2024, Jakarta, Indonesia
- E-learning: Disaggregated estimates using Small Area Estimation Methods in R
- Rice Estimation using Earth Observation Data in Indonesia