The moral of the story is in the data

Participants:  Data for Development: Workshop to Build Capacity in
Statistical Literacy and Data Use to Support Child-Relevant Planning,
Decision-Making and Advocacy. © UNICEF Pacific./2014/Thakkar

Last week my colleague Rebecca (Monitoring and Evaluation Officer for UNICEF Vanuatu) asked me if I could join her and our colleagues Bjorn and Asenaca from the Suva office for a workshop organised by UNICEF and Vanuatu National Statistics Office (VNSO). She said it would be handy if I could write up a press release for the local media. Seemed like a simple task so why not. Then she told me the subject of the workshop, which was “Data for Development: Workshop to Build Capacity in Statistical Literacy and Data Use to Support Child-Relevant Planning, Decision-Making and Advocacy”. 

Data collection, the easy way! 2-6 June 2014 in Port Vila, Vanuatu

On the way to Nguna, Vanuatu. © UNICEF Pacific/
2014/Leben

Everyone who has ever conducted an interview using paper and pen in the field quickly encounters the same problems: backpacks heavy with paper, ink running in the rain, surveys blowing away in the wind, and decoding illegible handwriting. And then there are the hours of typing from paper to computer with the ever present problem of data entry errors.