Page 21 - IB APR 2017

Women
UNICEF pushes for proper data

By Cheerieann Wilson

POOR data collection continues to be a
resource challenge in Papua New Guinea
in the provision of maternal health care
delivery, education and child support
programmes.
This has led to the United Nations In-
ternational Children’s Emergency Fund
(UNICEF) urging the government there to
prioritise data collection if it is to strategi-
cally place services.
In her first trip to the country, the As-
sistant Secretary General to the UNICEF
Deputy Director, Fatoumata Ndiaye, said
data is fundamental to any strategy. Child health care is among areas UNICEF wants PNG to address . Photo: UNICEF
Ndiaye and Karin Hulshof, UNICEF’s Proper data makes it easier for UN agen- estimate, very precise, how many children
Regional Director for East-Asia and the cies and donors to assist when needed. live in Papua New Guinea, where do they
Pacific visited Papua New Guinea for two “When you go and you sit in front of a live, it also becomes difficult to know how
days travelling to Goroka and Aziana committee and you have to advocate for many are out of school. They can count
village of Obura in the Wonenara district. your budget, you need the information to the ones already in school but they still
They also met with Prime Minister say, look we need to put our money here don’t know how many are out of school.”
Peter O’Neil. because these are the many cases that we Data, she says helps establish a true pic-
“Without accurate data, making policies have and they have not been decreasing ture of the situation in PNG communities.
becomes very, very difficult. And data in the last years and we have a high rate “So we are clear on how many children
should be linked up with budget and ac- of having those cases.” are exactly in school, what are the learning
countability,” Ndiaye said. However, Ndiaye says government has outcomes, what have they learnt, if they
The visit revealed the need for govern- made it clear that the efficient collation of are in class four, do they really know how
ment to properly collect and collate data. data should be a focus. to read and write. It’s very important that
“For the government to plan if there “It’s clear that the commitment and the we do know how many people are where
are going to be more schools we need to necessity of having good information on because if we are to bring services to
know where is the density of the popula- what is most important, what we should everyone you need to know do we bring
tion, we need to know how many children prioritise, it was clear in our conversations it for ten people, hundred people, 1000
are supposed to be living there, so the that we have to prioritise malaria, TB – people, 10,000 people.”
schools can be built in the right size and these are huge problems so the budget Ndiaye acknowledged that PNG is dif-
we don’t have a student teacher ratio of has to come with that.” ferent to other places.
100 students with one teacher…so there Despite the existing challenges, Ndiaye “Other places are easier to access, easier
has to be data accrual.” says PNG has made progress highlighting to collect data, you have a wonderful coun-
To help government, UNICEF will the Gender Act, free health services and try, beautiful in a way that is not seen
strengthen its in-house capacity and make free tuition. elsewhere but you also have the challenge
capacity available to the national bureau However, communities still need the of being extremely difficult to access, the
of statistics and other places where it’s provision of services like immunisa- communities are so dispersed. They are
needed. tion, maternal health care and access to in the middle of a forest, they are down a
“We were talking about schools, a mil- education. “PNG is a magnificent country hill and up a mountain, so collecting data
lion more children are in school, so what but there are places which are difficult to in that instance is not easy at all.”
do we know about those schools? We service where immunisation is lagging “The advantage now is that we are in
know very little. Are there teachers at behind and some of the other services are 2016 and technology exists and in our
school in every village? Do the children lagging behind.” own accountability, in our own systems
have textbooks? Is there a toilet so that Hulshof adds child protection issues we need to step up our game in the area
girls who want to do menstrual hygiene lack readily available data. of data – the UN as a whole - and bring
management can actually go to a toilet? “There is an enormous gap in data, so in benchmarks and what we’ve learnt to
Is there running water? We know very if we look at how many children are out actively support government’s work in
little.” of school, if you don’t know a very clear data collection.”

Islands Business, April 2017 21