(CARICOM Secretariat, Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown, Guyana) Dr. Philomen Harrison, Project Director, Regional Statistics, CARICOM Secretariat, is the President of the Board of Directors of the newly formed Caribbean Association of Caribbean Statisticians (CAPS).
Dr. Harrison was named President at the first meeting of the CAPS held in St. George’s, Grenada, on Thursday.
The other Members of the Board are: Vice President, Mr. Iwan Sno, Director, General Bureau of Statistics, Suriname; Vice President, Mr. Statchel Edwards, Chief Statistician, Statistics Department, Ministry of Finance, Economy and Public Administration, Antigua and Barbuda; Representatives, of Council of Chapters, Mr. Sean Mathurin, Programme Officer, Statistics, Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) Secretariat, Ms. Carol Coy, Director-General, Statistical Institute of Jamaica and Mr. Dave Clement, Former Director of Statistics, Central Statistical Office, Trinidad and Tobago. The International Representative is Mr. Eric Rancourt, Director, International Cooperation Division, Statistics Canada; the Secretary is Ms. Gatlin Roberts, Chief Statistician, Finance Statistical Office, Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning, Central Planning Division, St. Vincent and the Grenadines; and the Treasurer is Ms. Sonia Jackson, Former Director-General, Statistical Institute of Jamaica.
The Board of Directors was established during a week of statistics activities in Grenada that began with the Second High Level Advocacy Forum on Statistics.
The CAPS was an outcome of the First High Level Advocacy Forum: the Urgency of Statistics and the Global crisis – Enabling Development in the Caribbean Community held in 2009 in Trinidad and Tobago. At that event, Professor Chukwudum Uche of the Department of Sociology, Psychology and Social Work University of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica, delivered the key address titled `Use What You Have: Continuing Development of Statistics in the Caribbean Community’. In his address, Professor Uche emphasised that important role of the Standing Committee of Caribbean Statisticians (SCCS) and the Regional Census Coordinating Committee (RCCC) for decision-making and implementation in the Region. He recommended that the two committees “…initiate the formation of a Regional Professional Association, the Caribbean Statistical Society for the further development of the discipline in the Region.”
Work towards the establishment of the CAPS began shortly thereafter. A Regional Competition was held to determine the Motto of the Association, `Promoting Statistics for Statistical Development’. A similar completion was also held to identify a logo.
The CAPS is a non-profit organization with the following objectives:
- to promote the contribution of statistics and its applications to evidence based decision making in the CARICOM Region;
- to promote collaboration and discussion among professional statisticians
- to be a forum for discussion on statistical matters
- to promote the continuous training and development of professional statisticians
- to encourage research as it relates to statistical methodology and its applications, and to publish and disseminate the findings
- to promote a culture of statistical literacy, awareness and the general use of statistics in everyday life
It is anticipated that the establishment of the CAPS will positively impact the harmonization process within the Region and will be a catalyst for the compilation of a Database of Regional Experts through the Membership Directory of the Association.
It is envisaged that the Association will establish Committees to deal with subject matters such as Official Statistics, Survey Statistics, Statistical Computation and Statistical Education.
