Statistics is that field of science of measurement where you can be categorically certain about your uncertainty. Mark Twain on River Mississippi had this to say about the month of October: “October: This is one of the peculiarly dangerous months to speculate in stocks. The others are July, January, September, April, November, May, March, June, December, August and February.”
I have been privileged to have served in the South African public service and I think I am categorically certain about my confidence of being a public servant at heart and mind, though retired but not tired.
At least not yet. That being so, I have recently returned from Jordan where we convened as an expert group on the plans for the Iraqi census that is scheduled for later this year.
It has been a privilege to enable other countries with their census, drawing on the professionalism and stellar reputation of methodology that Statistics South Africa has brought to the global arena, which is much sought after, and which I have helped establish.
Assisting other nations
In this privileged position of service, earlier in my career, I got deployed in areas of conflict and post-conflict. The reason seems to have been our motto in 1996 of labelling the Census 1996 a conduit of peace. Through a number of illustrations, we argued that if the 1994 national elections were the bricks, then Census 1996 was the mortar that held the house of democracy together.
No sooner had I concluded Census 1996 than I was requested by the United Nations Statistics Division to lead an assessment mission in Cambodia, which had not had a census since 1963.
Cambodia
So, in late 1997 I was on a journey to Phon Phen, Cambodia, on a plan for a census in early 1998. My fhe first point of call upon arrival on a Saturday was with the UN Chief of Security.
I was briefed by a tall, fawn-moustached chief of security to Cambodia. He talked about Cambodia, reflecting on the Khmer Rouge of Pol Pot, the one-legged who was a dictator who ruled Cambodia as prime minister of Democratic Kampuchea between 1976 and 1979, and perpetrated the Cambodian genocide which killed nearly 25% of Cambodia’s population.
The second port of call was on the Monday. Then I met with the staff of the United Nations Population Fund, who asked me about this former mission. The first question was, “What would happen if my mission to Cambodia had established that a census was not feasible?”
I was quite taken aback by that question, but my retort to the anxious team was, “If it was so, then my report would say so.”
Fortunately, my assessment suggested differently, and the funds were immediately released. The census of Cambodia was undertaken successfully, and they have not looked back since.
Kyrgyzstan
The next stop was Kyrgyzstan. Here the assignment was quite interesting and different. The Soviet Union had just broken up while South Africa had done the reverse, unification.
But, nonetheless, both countries were undergoing fundamental change in their statistics system and central to such was how the population census they were going to mount would take place and, more generally, how they would organise their statistical work under the market economy?
My contribution on social transformation and the relationship between users and producers of official statistics: The case of SA’s 1996 Census was taken for a co-authored journal article for the Economic Commission of Europe in terms of contribution to management of transitions.
Sudan
Perhaps this qualified me to be deployed to the transition a decade later in Sudan, where a Comprehensive Peace Agreement was under way.
So, from 2005 to 2010 I was shunting between Pretoria, Khartoum and Juba as a chief adviser to the Monitoring and Evaluation Committee (MOC) of the Sudanese census whose most recent census was that of 1955.
My South African experience in the census activities and statistical operations came in handy as I had to constantly remind the often-polarised system between north and south that measurement is crucial for peace-building. The undertaking of a census was a constitutional requirement for the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CAP).
Census 2008 of Sudan was finally undertaken and shortly, thereafter, was a referendum and a local government election was in the offing. It so happened that during 2008, South Kordofan State refused to be counted, but then with the referendum and an impending election South Kordofan ultimately wanted in.
Instead of enjoying a month of the World Cup here at home, I had to pack my bags and be located in South Kordofan where the impossible had to be possible – running an operation and interpolating the data to a 2008 date in order to harmonise the weights for a referendum and an election.
Afghanistan
Between 2008 and 2009 I had to report to Kabul in Afghanistan on an assessment of a possibility of a census in Afghanistan. It was the most depressing mission. Objectively under such conditions of restricted movement because of the war, a census was not possible in Afghanistan.
Iraq
Shortly after June, I was posted on an Iraq mission for their census that had been postponed to 2010. The conditions while still tense there provided a glimmer of hope that this region of great civilisation could still undertake a count of its nation. But alas, it was not to be to date.
Lebanon
In 2018, I had to go to Lebanon on a census advisory mission. Lebanon has not undertaken a census for almost nine decades. The social organisation is quite complex and what the numbers could reveal may not be too palatable, yet they are necessary for nation-building. The 2019 window was the most possible for a number of factors that worked in Lebanon’s favour, yet the census was not to be. But as like everything that grows on one, I am on the advisory council for the Iraqi census.
Preparing Iraq to conduct a census
In October, last year we were supposed to have convened in Baghdad after failing to convene in April. But two weeks ago, we managed to meet in Jordan to discuss the census of Iraq and possibly a census of Iraq will ultimately prevail.
The ups and downs of trying to place this conduit of trust at the centre of national development reminded me of Mark Twain. The October mission to Baghdad was the most impossible after the eruption of tensions between Israel and Palestine. Like Mark Twain I feared October last year, but for different reasons.
South Africa is in safe hands with statistics and this knowledge is globally recognised and much sought after.
South Africa needs to make hay while the sun shines, and drink from the well of data and evidence that abounds around us. We need to disabuse ourselves of conjecture and anecdotes, which may be convenient lies and adventure into lazy thinking.
For when the window of sanity gets replaced by insanity, the platform of being categorically certain about our uncertainty will float and disappear like smoke yonder, and it will be ugly.
Dr Pali Lehohla is a professor of practice at the University of Johannesburg, a research associate at Oxford University, a board member of the Institute for Economic Justice at Wits, and a distinguished alumni of the University of Ghana. He is the former statistician-general of South Africa
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