Event description
High-quality official statistics are essential for effective policymaking. Generally, little is known about the statistics offices and the employees themselves who produce these statistics. Insights on the state of national statistics offices are key to growing efforts to strengthen and enable integrated national data systems. This is why the Inter-American Development Bank launched the NSO Employee Survey project, which surveyed 13,300 NSO employees in 14 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Join us on Wednesday, January 22nd for an in-depth discussion with the project leads on key survey findings - from insights on the competence and integrity of statistics officials to employees’ job motivation to the realities of salary levels, management, issues, and human resources practices – and learn about what’s next for the project in 2025.
Chair
Haishan Fu — World Bank Chief Statistician & Director, Development Data Group.
Haishan Fu is the World Bank Chief Statistician and Director of the Development Data Group. In her dual role, Haishan leads and coordinates the Bank’s development data agenda. A lifelong advocate for unlocking the power of data to improve lives, Haishan has been at the forefront of the global data discourse as a prominent thought leader, expert advisor, and academic and policy researcher for over three decades.
Speakers
Jose Antonio Mejia Guerra — Modernization of the State Lead Specialist, Inter-American Development Bank (IDB)
José Antonio Mejía Guerra works as Modernization of the State Lead Specialist at the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), his focus is strengthening of statistical capacity and data. He holds a master´s degree in Public Policy form Georgetown University and a master´s degree in Economics from George Washington University. He served as Vice president of the first Governing Board of Mexico´s National Statistics and Geography Institute (INEGI) between2008 and 2012. Before that he worked at the IDB for 13 years, where he coordinated the MECOVI Program.
Christian Schuster — Professor in Public Management, University College London (UCL)
Christian Schuster is a Professor in Public Management at University College London and Co-Founder of the Global Survey of Public Servants. His core research interest is in the use of data to measure and improve how public administrations and civil services work. He has published extensively on this topic, with over 70 academic articles and policy publications, and collaborated with more than two dozen governments in Europe, Latin America, Asia and Africa. His latest book is ‘The Government Analytics Handbook’, published with the World Bank (co-edited with Daniel Rogger). He holds a PhD from the London School of Economics and was previously an economist with the World Bank and a Visiting Scholar with the Inter-American Development Bank.
Discussants
Chiara Bronchi — Practice Manager, Public Institutions Data and Analytics Unit, World Bank
Chiara Bronchi is the Practice Manager for the Public Institutions Data and Analytics Unit in the Governance Global Practice of the World Bank Group. She leads a group of public sector economists and political scientists, who are building an innovative analytical and quantitative approach for assessing public institutions for a sustainable and inclusive development.
Umar Serajuddin — Manager, Indicators and Data Services Unit, Development Data Group, World Bank
Umar Serajuddin is a Manager in the World Bank’s Development Data Group (Indicators and Data Services Unit). He leads the Bank’s Open Data initiative and oversees the management of the World Development Indicators. He manages the teams that publish some of World Bank’s most prominent global public goods including the global poverty numbers (PIP), the World Integrated Trade Solutions (WITS), the Microdata Library, and Open Data Catalogue (Development Data Hub). He also coordinates the Bank’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) monitoring initiatives, and most recently the production of the 2020 SDG Atlas.
Maria Eugenia Genoni — Senior Economist, Poverty and Equity Global Practice, World Bank
Maria Eugenia Genoni is a Senior Economist in the Poverty and Equity Global Practice of the World Bank. She is currently Global Lead for the Global Solution Group on Data Systems and Statistics Operations and for the Real Time Monitoring of Welfare initiative. She led the 2024 Poverty, Prosperity and Planet Report. She has also led analytical work and operations on statistics, poverty and inequality, and household risk management in the Latin America and the Caribbean, South Asia, and Middle East and North Africa regions.