Informed decisions

Statistical capacity is defined by the World Bank as “a country’s ability to collect, analyse and disseminate high quality data about its population and economy”. 

In Jordan, there has been an effort in the recent years in the first two components of the definition provided herein. 

However, the effort concerning the third component, which is the diffusion of such data, seems to be stumbling. 

In advanced nations, every single decision is made after a thorough review of all available information (qualitative and quantitative data), professional analysis of such data, and other inputs from all parties that are concerned with the decision at hand. 

Yet, we still do not know, as scholars, the way our government makes public policy decisions and whether or not officials use these tools. 

We do not know whether the government possesses the appropriate database necessary for development planning purposes, whether it shares such data with independent researchers or institutions, or if this sharing is conclusive only with the long-standing “business groups elites “ that have long been appropriating the country’s political and economic decisions and directing them to serve their own business and for their own benefits.

Marwan Alshammari,
Dallas, Texas