The challenge of improving the quality of internationally comparable data

This paper discusses in detail issues dealing with the technical aspects of designing and conducting surveys. It is intended for an audience of survey methodologists.

Statistics can serve to benefit society, but, if manipulated politically or otherwise, statistics may also be used by the powerful as instruments to maintain the status quo or even to oppress. Statisticians working internationally, usually employed by international, supra-national or bilateral agencies, face a range of problems as they try to 'make a difference' in the lives of the poorest people in the world. One of the most difficult challenges statisticians face is the dilemma between open accountability and national sovereignty (in relation to what data are collected, the methods used and who is to have access to the results). Because of increasing globalization and new modalities of development co-operation and partnership, statisticians work in a constantly changing environment.

This paper addresses the problems of improving the quality of cross-national data. This paper aims to raise consciousness of the role of statisticians at the international level; describe some of the constraints under which statisticians work; address principles which ought to govern the general activities of statisticians; and evaluate, in particular, the relevance of such principles to international statisticians. This paper also draws upon the recent Presidential Address to the Royal Statistical Society (Presented June 2001, JRSS Series D forthcoming).