UBOS organises Statistics week to celebrate Africa Statistics Day.
The visibility provided by GIS makes it easy to designate administrative operation units
Drake Nyamugabwa
Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS) has organised a statistics week with a series of activities aimed at celebrating Africa Statistics Day which happens on 18th November.
The activities to mark the week from 16th to 21st November 20202 includes: : GIS day, Dissemination of the Food Balance sheet on Tuesday, Celebration of the Africa Statistics Day on Wednesday, Annual Gender statistics on Thursday, Dissemination of Uganda Wood Forum alongside a blood donation drive.
During the launch of the Statistics week and the first day of the week dubbed “World GIS Day”, Executive Director, UBOS represented by Kaudah Aliziki, highlighted the importance of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) as a critical tool in coordinating national statistics through capturing, analysing and producing data which she said supports planning processes.
She said that the GIS spatial is vital for economic transformation of Uganda through providing improved visibility of administrative units that has supported infrastructure development, national planning for government initiatives among other benefits.
“With the GIS technology, it has made it possible to visualize locations of operation, displaying and analysing figures provided by the system. GIS has shown how to map the world using tools that have ensured sustainable cities, sustainable agriculture, visualization of Census data, mapping processes. This has supported Vision 2020 and NDP III” she said.
Aliziki applauded the work done by the GIS working group chaired by UBOS for the tremendous support in data collection, dissemination, using the official data. The working group includes Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA), Makerere University, ESSIPS-East Africa Earth Observation among others.
The theme of the GIS day is: "Map the world. Make a difference"
Patrick Ojirot, a GIS Expert with KCCA, said that in order to address the challenges of the Kampala City including rural-urbanisation, traffic congestions, road network, drainage systems, climate change, pollution among others, the GIS Expert said that they have to utilize GIS technology to generate information that was applied for planning and service delivery.
The African Statistics Day (ASD) was adopted in May 1990 by the Sixteenth Meeting of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa Conference of African Ministers responsible for Planning and Economic Development. The day is celebrated on November 18 each year in order to “increase public awareness about the important role which statistics play in all aspects of social and economic life” of our countries and the continent.
