BelizeCARICOMCARICOM at workFeaturedIn FocusIn the SpotlightNewsNews and MediaPress ReleasesStatisticsTrending

Remarks by the Hon. John Briceno, Prime Minister of Belize| Opening, Fourth High-Level Advocacy Forum on Statistics, Placencia, Belize| 4 November 2024


It is my great honour to be here, speaking on the occasion of the Fourth High-Level Advocacy Forum on Statistics, and my sincere pleasure, on behalf of the Government of Belize and the Statistical Institute of Belize, to welcome you once again to our beautiful country.

This forum, being convened under the theme ‘Improving Lives through Statistics, Strengthening and Innovating Together’, coincides with a number of significant milestones for the statistical community, both within our Region and at the global level. 2024 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the establishment of the Standing Committee of Caribbean Statisticians, which will be holding its annual meeting later this week, as well as the sixth anniversary of the endorsement of the Regional Strategy for the Development of Statistics by the Conference of Heads of Government of CARICOM in 2018.

This year also marks thirty years since the initial adoption of the United Nations Fundamental Principles for Official Statistics and ten years since these Fundamental Principles, the backbone underpinning the work of producing official statistics around the world, were endorsed by the United Nations General Assembly. The 2020 round of Population and Housing Censuses also closes at the end of this year, and in what should be recognised as a commendable achievement, almost all countries in our region were able to participate, despite the unusual challenges and significant constraints experienced during this round. In short, within the domain of official statistics, there is much to celebrate this year, and it is only fitting that, as announced by the Honourable Prime Minister of Grenada, 2024 be designated the Year of Statistics for the Caribbean.

As Prime Minister of Belize and Minister responsible for Statistics, I take this opportunity to offer my wholehearted endorsement to this designation and to the observance of the Year of Statistics.

I know that I am speaking to the converted when I say that there has never been a time when data has been so widely recognised as one of the most valuable resources available to our countries. This is reflected in the ever-increasing demands for new data, produced more quickly, made more widely available, and with sufficient details as to allow for greater disaggregation and more meaningful analysis. This is an objectively positive development, as it signals a clear shift towards evidence-based planning, decision-making, and response to the imminent challenges our world faces. And yet, for small countries such as ours, it has placed an incredible amount of pressure on our already under-resourced national statistical offices and national statistical systems. Indeed, since the endorsement of the Regional Strategy for the Development of Statistics, our Caribbean NSOs have faced numerous challenges in their efforts to operationalize it. These were even further exacerbated in the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak, when national statistical systems were required to provide data to support government responses in almost real-time, working with significantly reduced budgets, and hundreds or even thousands of lives depending on the accuracy of the data they produced. To their great credit, data systems around the world were able to adapt and innovate, supporting the largest ever data-driven response to a global crisis.

This is nothing new for small countries with limited resources. By necessity, adaptability and resourcefulness have very often characterised our national statistical offices and by extension our national statistical systems. In Belize, we pride ourselves on being innovators across various domains. In 2021, for example, we finalised the single largest debt-for-nature conversion agreement, the Belize Blue Bond, effectively reducing the country’s debt burden by 12% of GDP, while simultaneously increasing government’s long-term investment in conservation for 20 years and protecting 30% of the country’s oceans.

This extends as well to the domain of statistics, where our own Statistical Institute of Belize aims to be a leader within the Region in developing and adopting innovative methods and leveraging the power of technology to support the production of quality and timely data for decision-making at all levels. In recent years, the SIB has introduced a number of new statistics and improved methodologies to its work program, including annual measures of multidimensional poverty and food insecurity, the country’s first Tourism Satellite Account, rebased GDP estimates aligned with the 2008 System of National Accounts, and a monthly Consumer Confidence Index. April of this year saw the official launch of the Key Findings of Belize’s 2022 Population and Housing Census, the first in our country to be completed using electronic data collection and with integrated geospatial data.

Within the broader national statistical system, the SIB and its partners are about to finalize a second National Strategy for the Development of Statistics, which will see the strengthening of our data system to better meet the growing needs of its data users over the next five years. This new NSDS will build upon the achievements of the previous six years, which were vitalto the completion of Belize’s second Voluntary National Review. Our second VNR included data to report on all seventeen SDG goals and was presented at the UN High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development in July of this year. Our national statistical system will also be called upon to support the monitoring and evaluation of the country’s Plan Belize Medium Term Development Strategy, for which the M&E framework is currently under development. The SIB, along with other key government agencies, is a co-partner in the development of this framework, and meeting the data needs of the MTDS will be a priority under the next NSDS.

The Government of Belize has made evidence-based decision-making a hallmark of its administration, and the progress our country has seen over the past four years is a testament to what can be achieved when data-driven planning of policies and programs is prioritised.

Our economy has not only recovered from the pandemic-induced recession of 2020, but has grown by 30.6% between 2020 and 2023. Unemployment rates have dropped significantly, reaching an all time low of 2.8% in April of last year. The incidence of multidimensional poverty has fallen from 36.5% in 2021 to 26.4% just two years later. We expect to further accelerate this progress towards eliminating poverty in our country when 2022 Census multidimensional poverty data at the community level becomes available, to support even more targeted programmes. Similarly, planned interventions to increase labour market
participation, especially among women, are being developed, based on labour force data produced by the SIB.

Clearly, the work of our governments and that of our producers of statistics are inextricably linked, as they should be if we are to achieve meaningful improvements in the quality of life for our people. Data should support our national development planning, from inception to monitoring and evaluation. At the global level, with only six years remaining to realise the targets of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the world continues to lag in its progress towards achieving the sustainable development goals. Small developing countries such as ours are particularly vulnerable in this regard, challenged with mobilizing resources not only to invest in our own development, but to also measure how far we have yet to go to meet these goals. Yet investment in data is one that has the potential to yield significant benefits to our countries, with one study by the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development estimating that every $1 invested in data systems results in $32 in economic benefits, on average.

We already know from our own experiences that the presence of accurate data in which international partners can have confidence is one of the minimum requirements for access to loans, grants and investments. Within the context of accelerated climate change, which continues to disproportionately impact the Caribbean region, we need data to even begin to quantify its impacts on our countries, much to plan for mitigating these effects and for climate-resilient development.

Looking toward the future, the results of the 2020 Census round has placed into sharp focus the fact of falling birth rates and slowing population growth across our region. It is estimated that as early as 2038 the Caribbean will begin to experience population decline, with some countries and territories already entering their periods of decline. Here again, data will be critical to how we prepare for the implications of this in the coming decades, including a shrinking workforce and an ageing population, alongside a need to strengthen social support systems, promote increased labour force participation, and provide greater opportunities for secondary and higher education.

These realities emphasise the need for support, from the highest levels of government, for our national statistical offices and our data systems. The Government of Belize is proud to say that it has answered this call, providing the Statistical Institute of Belize with a more than 26% increase in its annual recurrent budget, as well as increased funding for new surveys and statistical work programs. In 2022, despite financial constraints in the wake of COVID19, we prioritized and provided full funding for the 2022 Population and Housing Census. And just this year, the Government of Belize, in partnership with the United Nations Development Programme, supported the SIB and other key agencies in securing the largest grant ever received for the improvement of statistics in Belize. This grant, provided by the Korean International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) is valued at 3.6 millionUS dollars and will support legislative strengthening, capacity building, equipment, information systems, quality assurance, and new data collection activities over the coming three years.

In closing, I urge our counterparts in the Region to lend their support to statistics within their own countries, and to consider it an investment in our collective futures. I speak from our own experience here in Belize when I say that the partnership between NSOs and governments, when cultivated with an appreciation for our respective roles, has the potential to yield measurable and tangible improvements in the lives of our people. Ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the Government of Belize, I thank you for joining us today. I wish you a successful and engaging forum and a productive week of meetings

Tags
Show More
Back to top button