(MENAFN- The Peninsula)
Doha: President of the Planning and Statistics Authority (PSA) H E Dr. Saleh bin Mohammed Al Nabit has announced the start of the institutional arrangements for Qatar's third National Development Strategy 2023-2027.
He noted that benefiting from the State's two previous experiences, an organisational structure aimed at governing the preparation process has been set up, with the highest possible level of participation and at the same time with greater flexibility, in particular the proposal of the committees and work teams representing all governmental and non-governmental bodies and sectors of the State. In an interview with QNA, he said the recent census showed remarkable development in many areas in the country, the most prominent of which is significant increase in rates of women participation in the labor market and enrollment in education.
He said that confirming the lessons learned from the development, implementation and follow-up of the strategy in general is part of the preparations, in addition to the administrative and technical arrangements related to the inputs of the committees' work and the works teams to be formed.
The President of PSA announced that preliminary assessments of the implementation results for the past four years have been initiated in the light of periodic follow-up reports, studies and other analyses prepared by the Authority and the evidence produced by the statistics sector in the authority.
He said that since each national strategy reflects the development stage in which it is located, and is also affected by regional and international developments - at the economic and geopolitical levels - the consensus on development trends is an essential part of the preparatory work, as it complements previous efforts on the one hand and responds to urgent development needs and what is the emerging circumstances dictate on the other hand.
Dr. Saleh Al Nabit indicated that the authority prepared and presented the State of Qatar Voluntary National Review in July of this year, at the High-level Political Forum (HLPF) on Sustainable Development for 2021 of the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), where the progress made was tracked in achieving the goals and objectives of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), pointing out that the Authority is currently preparing a road map for many activities after submitting the review, foremost of which is the preparation of a methodology for integrating the goals and objectives of the sustainable development agenda into the sectors of the third National Development Strategy.
With regard to the results of the recently announced Qatar 2020 census, he explained that the 2020 census is the sixth in a series of censuses conducted by the State of Qatar, adding that it relied mainly on the administrative records of the various government agencies in the country, as they were updated and the missing ones were provided through field operations. The mechanisms to update them continuously through administrative records were also developed.
On the challenges that faced census process, HE the President of PSA said that the timing of the implementation of the census coincided with the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, which greatly affected all aspects of life, and led to the suspension or postponement of censuses in a number of countries of the world. He stressed that the Authority succeeded in carrying out the census thanks to its flexibility and ability to work in such circumstances.
He added that they were ready to overcome the difficulties and the obstacles imposed by the pandemic, and implement the census in the internationally scheduled year, based on the recommendations of the United Nations, using all means that contributed to the safe implementation of the census for the community.
Regarding the most prominent results of the census, which reflected important economic and social leaps when compared to the 2010 census, he explained that the results showed a remarkable development in many areas in the country, the most prominent of which was the significant increase in the rates of women participation in the labor market and enrollment in education.
He added that the results showed that more than half of Qataris working in the public sector are Qatari women; in terms of education, the percentage of females (in the age group 15-24 years) who are enrolled in education increased significantly, reaching (96.3 percent) of total females at the age of education, while their percentage in the 2010 census was (65.3 percent), meaning that their percentage increased between the last two censuses by 31 percentage points.
He also pointed to an important development revealed by the Qatar Census 2020 related to the decrease in illiteracy rates in the country for individuals in the age group (10 years and over) to 0.8 percent, while it was about 3.6 percent in the 2010 census.
In a related context, he said that the census also showed an increase in the number of business establishments by 130.6 percent between the 2010 and 2020 censuses, bringing the number to approximately 7120. It also showed a rise in the number of buildings in the country with an increase of (49.7 percent) between the two censuses.
Regarding the role of the recent ministerial reshuffle in implementing the plans and strategies of Qatar National Vision 2030, Dr. Saleh bin Mohammed Al Nabit said that achieving Qatar National Vision 2030 requires developing institutional and organizational capabilities and providing public services with efficiency and transparency.
He added that since the national development strategy adopted the sectoral approach in preparation and analysis, it is expected that its sectors will adapted to correspond to government sectors. In all cases, it is expected that workers in the government sector will be redistributed, absorb more Qataris looking for work, and increase labor productivity, which in themselves are results that development strategies seek to achieve.
Regarding the most prominent projects and plans of the Authority in the statistics sector, he stressed that the Authority has made great strides in modernizing official statistics in the State of Qatar, through the implementation of projects that depend on the production of data that contribute to the prosperity of all sectors in the country.
He stated that the Authority is currently following up the process of completing the electronic linking of administrative records data with ministries and governmental and semi-governmental agencies, as a main source of reliable statistical data.
He explained that these efforts contribute to building a central registry in accordance with a methodology that works to control the quality of data from its sources and put in place the necessary mechanisms and procedures to ensure its compliance with international standards using Geographic Information Systems (GIS).
Dr. Al Nabit indicated in a related context that the Authority has priority projects to meet the challenges in the field of providing statistical data that are not available from administrative records and annual surveys to calculate some indicators that we need to provide and update periodically as indicators of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
He stated that the national framework for the quality of statistical data has been adopted, which is a unified standard for all statistical agencies, and that will contribute to building a high-quality national statistical system that will play a major role in overcoming these challenges.
In the context of making data and statistics available to the beneficiaries, he pointed out that the Planning and Statistics Authority has recently launched several platforms that serve statistical work, such as the (Rased) platform, which contributes to collecting the required data electronically from some source agencies, and the establishment of the foreign trade system as an integrated interactive system that allows users to query foreign trade data from databases and display the results in different formats such as tables, graphs, Excel and PDF files, in addition to creating a platform for a guide to definitions, concepts and statistical terms that benefit researchers, interested parties and decision-makers.
He stressed that the Authority is keen to attract Qatari cadres specialized in these fields, and cooperates with higher education and training institutions in this regard.
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