WFP handover 38 smartphones to GDS to collect data in digital transformation

Díli, 24 February 2021, Today Mr. Dageng Liu as World Food Program representative in Timor-Leste, handover 38 smartphones to the Director General of Statistics Timor-Leste, Mr. Elias dos Santos Ferreira. These smartphones will be utilized by DGE staffs that are working in certain area of Consumer Price Index-CPI. The event was held at the GDS REHA Conference Room, Caicoli, Dili.

The 38 smartphones will be installing an open-source application called “Open Data Kit-ODK” ODK is one of the leading data collection solution available and been deployed by a wide variety of organization in dozens of countries around the world. Open Data Kit collect is a replacement for paper-based with support for geo-location, as well as numerical and textual, therefore this ODK system will be apply in collecting Consumer Price Index with an assistance of World Food Program.

During the handover of smartphone Mr. Dageng Liu said that WFP the leading humanitarian organization in the world and also help to save lives by providing hungry children and families nutritious meals. In other hand Mr. Liu also said that food price is the most important indicator for WFP, we use to define whether the market is functioning and how way the best mode of our support, whether we provide food assistance or we provide cash assistant, in many countries also. I think last year we had a very good start about working with statistics on the CPI in Price monitoring and using Open Data Kit (ODK) tools…which is developing in globally is an Open-source data. I think this is a good step and before we are using paper-based data collection and now we are talking about digital transformation.
The General Directorate of Statistics, Mr. Elias dos Santos Ferreira said that the main objective to use the Open Data Kit is to help CPI staff to collect CPI data by weekly and monthly, secondly to increase the quality of the CPI data use by utilizing electronic devices, thirdly is to supporting in analyses of CPI data, fourth is proportion of the work will be easier and the next is to define location for the data collection and reduce a human error.
Mr. Elias and Mr. Liu also by saying that in short period they will delivering training to CPI staffs that are going to carry out the data collection in the fields. Currently two municipalities and RAEOA is lockdown therefore the training will be implemented as soon as the situation back to normal, so that all municipalities including RAEOA get the same training and implement at once throughout the country, added Mr. Ferreira.
In this occasion the General Director of Statistics on behalf of Ministry and Vice Ministry of Finance would like to thank World Food Program for continued support towards strengthening the CPI data collection tools.

The participants that attended for handover 38 smartphones were attending by National Directors, WFP staffs, head of departments, CPI team and also Media.
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