Presenter: Silas Mulwah Organization: Kenya National Bureau of Statistics

1. Module 1: EMERGING TRENDS IN DATA DISSEMINATION Title:New Approaches to Data Dissemination Presenter: Silas Mulwah Organization: Kenya National Bureau of Statistics • 9 -12th September 2013, United Nations Regional workshop on Data Dissemination and Communication Amman, Jordan

2. OUTLINE • KNBS at Glance • Dissemination Background • Current Practices • New approaches • The Future

3. KNBS at Glance • The Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) was established by the Statistics Act of 2006 to replace CBS • The Act establishes KNBS as a Semi-Autonomous Government Agency. KNBS core mandate includes: • Collection of statistical information. • Compilation of statistical information. • Analysis of statistical information. • Publication and dissemination of statistical information forpublic use. • Coordinating, monitoring and supervising the National Statistical System [NSS].

4. Mission & Vision Mission To effectively manage and coordinate the entire National Statistical System to enhance statistical production and utilization.VisionTo be a centre of excellence in Statistics production and management.

5. KNBS and National Statistical System • Establish standards and promote the use of best practices and methods in the production and dissemination of statistical information across the NSS. • Plan, authorize, coordinate and supervise all official statistical programs undertaken within the NSS.

6. Background Information • Since late 1980’s up to early 2000 Surveys were conducted but not analyzed, or when analyzed, the results were not released to the public in time. • Statistical products such as the Economic Survey and the Statistical Abstract were produced without release calendars leading to delays in making information available to the public. • Demand for statistics to benchmark and track implementation progress of national development initiatives and programs substantially increased.

7. Cont’ • Kenya government has increasingly come to appreciate the usefulness of good statistics for evidence–based policymaking in guiding major Government policies and in monitoring development programs and the Millennium Developments Goals. • To help rebuild the statistical system, the Government prepared a five-year Strategic Plan for 2003/04–2007/08 for the NSS. • One of the key recommendations in the Strategic plan is the development of a Data Access and Dissemination Policy to address the issue of data access and use.

8. Current practices Traditionally KNBS has been using publications, seminars and workshops to release and disseminate survey and census data. CDs, DVDs are used for distribution of both survey/census publications and Microdata after anonymisation process.

9. Web based dissemination tools KENNADA IHSN micro-data management Toolkit – It is used by KNBS to document survey data and survey reports, data and the meta data is available in net by use of NADA. About 37 surveys reports have been documented and published on the website Redatam – IMIS (integrated mult-sectoral information system) KNBS has used IMIS to store 1989, 1999 Census Micro data. It is used to query information

10. Cont’ KenInfo - developed by UNICEF Mobile Dissemination: It was used to disseminate 2009 population census results. Tools under considerations: Data Portal, Data fallete

11. New Approaches Like many other NSOs, the Kenya national Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) has developed a dissemination policy to guide the release/standards and the tools to be used in data dissemination. Due to Technological advancement in ICT and increased demand for data, KNBS is changing the way of accessing and disseminating information to the users.

12. Cont’d Surveys done recently suggest that many National Statistical Offices (NSOs) are in different stages of progress in migrating from a paper-based publishing regime to a web-based publishing regime. Several web based tools have been developed by different organizations for publishing survey results and report but NSOs are faced by common theme and challenges to make the World Wide Web an effective medium for the on-line communication and dissemination of statistics.

13. Cont’d • As the leading agency in statistical information KNBS is also trying to make its website an effective medium for disseminating statistical information. • In order to attract more users of statistical data, it seeks to install dissemination tools which are web based and with the following capabilities: ease of web site navigation; effectiveness of on-line search capabilities; availability of regional level data i.e. for the particular domains of interest especially the County data; documented statistical methods used in analyses; and effectiveness of on-line information retrieval.

14. Cont’d • Although dissemination policy through the web was developed, not all the information is available through the web • Issues of data confidentiality and cost recovery has limited dissemination of information through the web • Availability of databases, advances in statistical analysis and computing technologies provide users with more and higher quality resources for linking records in released datasets.

15. Cont’d • Pressure from users force disseminators to provide everything about the data, but disclosure risks pressure them to limit what is released. • Loss of trust by respondents may lead to collection of low quality data. • It is becoming a challenge for agencies and organizations to continue providing microdata in a world where confidentiality constraints do not allow them to release genuine data • To overcome the confidentiality constraints; statisticians and national statistical agencies are researching on two strategies:

16. Cont’d • Remote access computer servers • users submit requests for analyses and, in return, receive only the results of statistical analysis. • Confidentiality is protected because the remote server never allows users to see the genuine data. • Although remote servers do not allow users to view the data, they are not immune to disclosure risks. • Users may be able to submit models containing judicious transformations of variables that result in disclosures

17. Cont’d (b) Synthetic data (possibly simulated data that mimic the relationships in the real data). • This approach has low disclosure risks since the released values are not the genuine data. • This is microdata that look like the genuine data. It was first proposed by Rubin (1993) • Identification of units and their sensitive data from synthetic samples is nearly impossible The Future • The remote server and synthetic data approaches will not meet all analysts’ statistical needs.

18. Cont’d • Analysts seeking to use exploratory data analysis to search for complicated relationships may find remote servers too limited. • Analysts seeking to fit models involving relationships not generated in the synthetic data—for example, high-order interactions involving complicated transformations of the data will find the synthetic data inadequate for their modeling. Future of data dissemination • Analysts may have to apply for special access to the genuine microdata in restricted research data centers. - require analysts to sign special pledges of confidentiality, and all work using the data is done in the center.

19. Cont’d • Restricted access data centers are undoubtedly part of the future of data dissemination, but they are not a viable solution for wide access to public data use. • It is likely that, agencies and organizations may not be willing or allowed to release genuine microdata for public use. • Statisticians in academia, government,and industry have recognized this coming problem and have proposed: remote access servers and synthetic datasets. • Remote servers and synthetic data undoubtedly will play central roles in the future of data dissemination.

20. End of Presentation and thanks for your attention