The Role of Governments in Transcending Data Scarcity in Emerging Markets
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The Role of Governments in Transcending Data Scarcity in Emerging Markets
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By Davis Mwania, Research Analyst, Botho Emerging Markets Group
May 30, 2022
Data scarcity presents a significant global challenge. For instance, in 2021, an IMF report titled, “What Next for Emerging Markets,” highlighted the unavailability of data on individual incomes from household surveys and administrative sources in 20 countries classified as emerging markets. This lack of data makes it challenging to accurately estimate Covid-19’s impact on global inequality weighted by population in 2020. Similarly, another study by the World Bank underscored that 77 countries lacked sufficient data to measure poverty exhaustively.
Governments’ access to population data is constrained by capacity deficiencies, poor policy implementation, weak data usage culture, and insufficient funds. However, data availability and reliability can be enhanced through training, increased budgetary allocation, and public-private partnerships (PPPs) that improve effective decision-making and, consequently, development outcomes. Therefore, governments in developing countries must play an active role in overcoming data constraints and ensuring equitable access to high-quality data for better development outcomes.
The Challenges of Data Accessibility
Accurate data that covers basic demographic characteristics is direly needed, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa, where only one in three deaths is recorded in the national registration systems. This is because only 18 countries in the region capture death statistics; of these, only four meet international standards for death registrations and cause of death information. Furthermore, only 45% of children under the age of 5 are registered in the West and Central Africa regions, the lowest registration globally. With challenges in civil registration, Africa has difficulty in resource planning, monitoring, and evaluation of local and international policies, estimating population statistics and mortality rates, and even addressing justice cases such as inheritance disputes.
Governments lack the capacity to gather, synthesize and disseminate data since a large proportion of civil service workers lack technological equipment and skills. For instance, in Myanmar’s Central Institute of Civil Service Upper Myanmar, only an estimated 45 computers served 422 staff in 2017. Thus, many productive hours that could be more effectively spent in delivering services to citizens are wasted perusing hard copy documents. Moreover, the government ministries lack accurate standard indicators such as malaria rates or the number of primary school attendees. Similarly, in many African countries, governments lack the financial and technical capacity to store the information and relay it to the public to whom they must be accountable.
Although data can be useful in increasing the public value for governments through effective policy anticipation and actual service delivery, its usage has been hampered by insufficient budgetary allocations. Moreover, the data paucity is seen as a cultural issue due to the politicization of statistics and the lack of a good research culture, as illustrated in top African think tanks and research institutions. While governments are increasingly committing to official open data initiatives, official statistics that are looked upon for sound decision-making by public, private, and international actors have sometimes proven unreliable and outdated. The consequence of this is that some countries end up selling themselves short by failing to reevaluate and update information on their economic or political contexts. For instance, an exercise to compute Nigeria’s GDP in 2014 revealed that the country’s GDP (which had not been updated since 1990) was not $270 billion and was in fact $570 billion, thus, making Nigeria the largest economy in Africa.
As a result, policymakers, governments, and businesses make inefficient decisions that do not reflect the proper contextual relevance, leading to a waste of valuable resources. Moreover, most economic activity in Africa is informal, making it difficult to capture the official statistics. In fragile countries where violence is prevalent, collecting information that could end up saving many lives becomes life-threatening.
Addressing Data Scarcity
Data is a valuable tool for proper resource planning, distribution, and monitoring. As such, a robust culture of its usage in creating government policy is foundational in driving the demand for accessible, dependable, and credible data. Governments ought to be highly transparent and open to accountability by publicly disseminating data even when it paints a grim picture of the socio-economic and political context. Effective dissemination of data requires governments to build their communication capacity, so as to organize and package large amounts of statistics into information that the public can clearly understand and respond to. A good example of this is the Mwananchi Guide disseminated by The National Treasury in Kenya in both Swahili and English versions to encourage public participation during the budget-making process.
Governments can improve their capacity to allow for regular data collection and management by increasing budgetary allocation across government ministries, establishing PPPs with multinational companies, or seeking financing through result-oriented projects with multilateral organizations. The enhanced capacity encompasses training the civil service and availing technical equipment such as computers and tablets for research. In addition, laying the right infrastructure, namely access to wider network coverage and more reliable electricity supply are prerequisites for a seamless shift to e-governance solutions. A case in point is the program-for-results project in the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS), which resulted from a partnership with the World Bank and increased the frequency of gathering labor and poverty statistics from several years to quarterly.
Data gathered from primary and secondary research should be properly disseminated on official statistics websites in line with the open data governments’ commitments. In dynamic settings, such as the fragile Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) where conflict is prevalent, real-time data is urgently needed. Relying on traditional methods of data collection, such as direct collection through enumerators and analysis using linear methodologies may be redundant. Rather, adopting new tailor-made methods of collecting data such as satellite imaging, social media monitoring, and enlisting resident data enumerators to relay information within shorter time frames would be more cost- and time-effective.
For emerging markets to reap the benefits of the 4th industrial revolution, bridging data accessibility and reliability gaps is fundamental. This will ensure that governments, the private sector, and international actors have access to high-quality data to effectively respond to the very dynamic, complex, and multifaceted socio-economic and political contexts that are characteristic of such economies. Moreover, with adequate data, relevant stakeholders will better anticipate, plan, implement, monitor, and evaluate their progress in ensuring optimal use of scarce resources, thus spurring economic growth and development.
Davis Mwania is a Research Analyst at Botho Emerging Markets Group