The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) switches over to the digitalization of data collected by survey operators.  To facilitate this process, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), with support from the Swiss Cooperation Office, donated 200 tablet PCs to the Bureau. These will also be used to collect data when taking censuses or questioning domestic households. So far, the survey operators collected data on paper and then introduce them into the computer, IPN reports.

“All the modern states implement new data collection methods using new information technology. The use of tablet PCs for the purpose is an important and inevitable step for modernizing data collection and the national statistics system,” said NBS director Oleg Cara.

“We hope the 200 tablet PCs offered in concert by the UNFPA and Switzerland will support the digitalization of statistical operations at the national and local levels and will increase the accuracy and quality of data and also the speed of accessing these,” said UNFPA Resident Representative in Moldova Nigina Abaszada.

“The high-quality statistics are very important for the Republic of Moldova, as for any other country. Moreover, we have an agenda called Agenda 2030, which is based on the Sustainable Development Goals that all the countries, including Switzerland and the Republic of Moldova, accepted and signed, while statistics are also important for the way in which we make progress in monitoring this agenda,” said Caroline Tissot, head of the Swiss Cooperation Office.

The switchover will contribute to increasing the quality and security of data, to reducing the time and costs. “Currently, the data collected on paper are transposed to the computer by other employees. The process necessitates time and additional human resources. By digitizing this process we pass over this manual stage and minimize mistakes. The confidentiality of personal data will be safer because the data introduced into the tablet PC are automatically transmitted and stored on the NBS’s server, while the survey operator no longer has access to them. Also, owing to the GPS incorporated into the tablet PC, we can see if the operators took the interview in the indicated locality. There can be taken pictures and made different recordings,” said Larisa Borș, head of the NBS’s Data Collection in Households Section.

The donation forms part of a series of actions aimed at improving the institutional capacity of the NBS implemented by UNFPA with support from Switzerland.

The digitization of data collection is part of the Strategy for Developing the National Statistics System for 2016-2020 and the Sustainable Development Goals that envision the offering of desegregated high-quality data whose achievement was assumed by the Republic of Moldova too.