Abstract

Statistics is playing an increasingly significant role in many of our endeavours. Policy/strategy formulation and daily decision making by governments, investors, social organizations or members of the public, directly or indirectly rely on information derived from use of statistical methodologies and data science. Advances in the ability to manage, exchange, combine and analyse data of all types, and to disseminate statistical information are changing the way traditional statistical processes are carried out. National statistical offices therefore need to continue to play a critical role in harnessing data revolution for sustainable development. To be effective in stimulating data use and evidence-based decision making, the offices must also improve data accessibility, analysis, and presentation by adopting open data policies. In Nigeria, the production of official statistics lie with the National Bureau of Statistics, while at state level this is handled by the State Bureau of Statistics. These bodies have continued to generate statistical summaries and indices that help in tracking progress across different sectors. However, reliance on obsolete computational methods often lead to inappropriate or delays in data reporting and in some cases, accuracy of the reported data can be subject of contention, necessitating statistical skill up-scaling by those producing and handling national statistical data. Enhancing statistical literacy among officials of statistical agencies on a continuous basis would require cordial and working relationship with the academia, in particular with academic Departments of Statistics allowing for a shared learning of sophisticated and advanced methods of data collection and analysis. We undertook and establish a collaborative engagement between the LISA 2020 lab at the Department of Statistics, Federal University of Technology, Akure, Nigeria (FUTA-LISA) and the two statistical offices in Ondo State: National Bureau of Statistics, Ondo State and the Ondo State Bureau of Statistics, the two Bureaus representing the Federal and State Governments respectively in Ondo State. The collaboration entails the establishment of training platforms of mutual benefits to both the lab and the agencies and to provide technical supports to the agencies in designing of data collection platforms and data of analysis. This resulted in trainings and designing data collection platforms although some challenges hamper the smooth execution of aspects of the collaborations on a continuous basis.