The National Institute of Statistics of Rwanda (NISR) will soon complete a state-of-the-art statistics training centre which will help practicing statisticians to upgrade their capacity in data collection, analysis and management.

The Rwf7b facility is set to be inaugurated early next year with officials confident it will significantly increase the role of the local statisticians in the country’s quest for sustainable development.

Statistics are critical in national development and have increasingly informed policy decisions in Rwanda over the last couple of years.

Nonetheless, the country needs more specialist statistics to improve on the quality of data collected and subsequent analysis in specific sectors of the economy.

The proposed training centre will offer practical, hands-on skills to already practicing statisticians and this will help trainees better respond to the prevailing needs.

The development cannot be timelier considering that it comes at a time when the country is entering a critical development phase, with the government already working on Vision 2050, as Vision 2020 draws to an end.

There are invaluable lessons that the country learned during the implementation of Vision 2020 that will be instrumental in the formulation and execution of the next generation blueprint and the country’s statisticians will be expected to play an important role in this effort.

Rwanda’s transformation agenda will be fast-tracked and deliver better results if the country’s policies are informed by facts on the ground and the role of statisticians in this aspect cannot be overemphasised.

It’s imperative that both public and private institutions make a deliberate effort to maximise the statistics training centre once it has opened doors.