Liberia: ‘Disjointed Data’; Inadequate Funding Impeding Uniformity in Statistics

Monrovia – In Liberia getting accurate statistics or data on specific issues is a major challenge as the data on many issues including poverty, roads, education and literacy, birth rate, infant mortality, death rate, and others are all estimates provided by international institutions.

Liberia as a country has not been able to harmonize its data collection, management and dissemination of accurate data that can be relied upon for major policy making decisions.

For financial information, the country looks up to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) World Bank and other international institutions who normally only provide estimates.

In order to make sound economic as well as other decisions, accurate and available data is a key component as without data the decision could have a negative impact especially when the targeted beneficiaries of the information are not known.

In countries around the world, before decisions are made the available data is used as a basis or benchmark for making such decisions so that the decisions can have the requisite results.

Although there is a statutory institution,  Liberia Institution for Geo Information Services (LISGIS) established to serve as the hub of all data but over the years ministries and agencies of Government have gathered and managed their own data thereby resulting to conflicting data about Liberia.

A FrontPageAfrica investigation has gathered that some of the problems facing data collection, management and dissemination is down to low budgetary support to the statutory entity with the mandate to control data activities in Liberia, the LISGIS.

As the country goes towards National Census in 2022, the wave of scattered data makes it compelling for the National Government through the National Legislature to prioritize funding through budgetary allotment to LISGIS to enable that entity gather sufficient, credible and reliable data that can be used for decision making.

Besides collecting and managing data, it is common that nearly all ministries and agencies of Government are managing their own data which they normally release to the public and other international partners.

For instance the Ministry of Labour has its own statistics on employment and labor related issues, the Liberia Revenue Authority (LRA) has information about taxes and revenue collection which that entity makes available to the public. In the same vein, the Ministry of Health also releases information on health related issues.

When FrontPageAfrica reached out to Wilmot F. Smith, Jr. deputy Director General for Information and Coordination, he told FPA that there is a Data Sharing and Exchange Policy which clearly provides the roadmap to Liberia Coordinated System of official statistics for users of Statistics.

According to Smith, LISGIS is at the Central Point as the hub and repository of available relevant data management and data dissemination for the public, Civil Society, private sector, research organization ad international partners.

Smith says unfortunately, the cooperation and willingness for other institutions to open up and allow LISGIS to carry out the smooth operation of data collection and coordination has been and is a huge challenge. Hence, he believes an Executive Order would be required to have all the actors recognizing LISGIS’s Role to deter noncompliance from institutions.

The LISGIS Deputy Director says also adequate resources along with the needed logistics are needed to ensure enough data are provided quickly in order for the Data Cycle to match the Decision Cycle to ensure enough data are provided quickly for the data Cycle to Match the Decision Cycle.

He says as part of preparation for the conduct of the 2022 census, LISGIS Pretest deployment get underway this week

“For the Pretest we have 268 EAs and 76 Supervision Areas, so total required HR for the field enumeration is 244, but we might need to recruit some other higher level officers for Quality Control. We may end up with about 15,000 EAs for the Census and required about 2780 Supervisors. It’s going to be a 100% digital census with Computer Assisted Personal Interview (CAP methodology for the de-facto enumeration”, he disclosed.

Smith added “The purpose of this Pre-test is to: Test the adequacy of all the census instruments such as the EAmaps (how correct are they, hope not misleading), test the questionnaire test our logistics preparation, have idea of what means of transportation enumerators would require to reach the nooks and crannies of the country, how many days will be considered adequate for the enumeration (total coverage), public awareness, test receptivity and buy in of our stakeholders (the public)” (% of EAs to be enumerated) its about 0.2% or so. Very small percentage, due to inadequate funding to cover the expense if higher than that. This is supposed to be dressed rehearsal for the census but funding the expected scare was huge, hence we scaled down to that tiny bit”.

Smith says data will be transmitted to the SCWed Platform resident in the GCP. GOOGLE CLOUD Platform.

He noted that no country is able to grow and develop without having the available reliable and accurate data that can be used as the tool in making decisions.

Liberia has not conducted census for several years making it difficult to have accurate information about the total population and other important information about the country.

The lack of validated and credible data is to some extent hurting the revenue generation of the country as the Government has announced that it is now moving from millions to billions, credible information on the economy such as number of businesses could help the Government reach the targeted goal of generating billion.

In the proposed budget LISGIS is seeking to have a budgetary allotment of US$12,575, 000 for the conduct of the Census and other activities.

Appearing at Budget hearing before the Joint Legislative Committee on Budget last week, LISGIS Director General, Frances F. Wreh in a LISGIS factsheet used during the hearing indicated that the entity in February 2020 trained 192 mapping personnel for a month and in February 2021 conducted a refresher training for the 192 mapping personnel who were deployed throughout Liberia in April 2021 to conduct the National Geographic Planning scheduled for 7 months.

According to the LISGIS factsheet, the mapping has to be extended because the projected 10,500 enumeration areas for 2018 is no longer a reality. LISGIS is said to have now demarcated 12,777 enumeration areas as of November 2021 and it is still left with over 21% (173 clans) of the 822 clans nationwide. By December the number is gone to 13,747.

LISGIS has also indicated that it requires additional resources and logistics to keep in touch with the March 2022 main census enumeration exercise and that the entity also needs a new home that will enable it conduct the 2022 census that requires huge number of field staff for the job.

A look at the last national budget revealed that the Government support to LISGIS core function through the annual budget has been significantly reduced, which has impacted a lot of the operations of the entity including routine data collection, analysis, publication, training of statistical staff and effective running of its main and county offices.

Director General Wreh made a strong emphasis on the need for adequate funding for the 2022 census during his appearance before the Lawmakers.