Cross River, UNFPA Equip 30 Statisticians With Skills

Cross River State Bureau of Statistics and UNFPA yesterday began a five-day training in Calabar for te 30 newly recruited statisticians and other officers to improve data-driven governance.

The statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) targets new staff brought into the state service to strengthen evidence-based planning and reporting across ministries, departments and agencies.

Declaring the workshop open, vice chairman/CEO of the State Planning Commission, Pastor Bong Duke, represented by permanent state planning commissioner Kingsley Ndem, described quality data as “one of the most valuable tools for governance, planning, investment decisions, monitoring and evaluation.”

He added that “no government can effectively plan for its people without credible, timely and reliable statistics.”

Duke commended the Bureau of Statistics for the “timely training programme” and thanked UNFPA for its “continued partnership, technical support, and commitment to institutional development in Cross River State.”

Statistician General Akedoh Okoi said modern data reporting must be done “in a manner with which the layman will understand what you are talking about.” She stressed that raw data needs cleaning, analysis and disaggregation before it can inform policy.

She noted that Governor Bassey Otu “just recruited a lot of statisticians into the state,” calling it “a very good step in the right direction.”

She added: “Most of these statisticians are not equipped, we’ll equip them with the technicalities of statistical reporting.”

After the workshop, participants will be sent to the field because “after fieldwork, what’s next is the analysis aspect, which is the reporting aspect.”

Representing UNFPA, Head of Sub-Office/Programme Coordinator Dr Andrew Kirima said the workshop is critical because “in today’s development landscape, the availability of high-quality data is central to planning, resource allocation, and monitoring.”

He noted that UNFPA’s work in reproductive health, population dynamics and gender equality “is wholly anchored on evidence-based programming,” adding that “interventions are only as effective as the data that inform them.”

Desk Officer Richard Idiong, speaking for the Commissioner for International Donor Coordination, said the SPSS training matters because “government plans, budgets, and programs are only as strong as the data behind them.”

He listed four expected outcomes: evidence-driven decisions, closing the skills gap, harmonization across MDAs, and improved accountability to partners requesting “disaggregated, well-analyzed data.”