How do Sierra Leone’s Leaders Make Decisions – why credible
data is necessary
Conversations that can transform Sierra Leone; Discussing
the power of credible national data in aiding Sierra Leone’s businesses, organizations
and most importantly its policy makers make more informed decisions.
The task of Sierra Leone’s leaders and policy makers is not
an easy one. National development; the social and economic transformation
requires foresight and the ability to plan into the future. It requires
decision makers to have access to and base their decisions on reliable and
timely information about Sierra Leoneans and Sierra Leone’s present and past as
basis for planning and implementing policies that achieve the best outcomes for
the country. The logic of my thought today is simple; we elect national leaders
and give them the huge responsibility of making our lives better, but if (when
asked) we do not give them the (right) data they need to make informed decisions,
the whole nation suffers, as it has been for a very long time in my own opinion.
This past Friday I was in a conversation with a group of fellow young Sierra Leoneans and we were having a conversation about the importance of data in decision making. As the discussion went by, it slowly became clear that without rigorous, timely, and reliable data that reflects the real Sierra Leone to guide our policy makers, the decisions they make will inevitably be constrained and be overshadowed by faithful guesses their own humanly biases at best.
Actually, if there’s something worse than not having data at
all, it’s misleading data. Here is where the daily Sierra Leonean has a lot do
to help him/herself and the rest of their community. When there are censuses
and surveys conducted by government, we often look at the enumerators/data collectors
and the exercise light-heartedly. However, if one knows the number of both
daily and long term decisions that will be made based on that data, one would treat
with its due seriousness. When we refuse to give information to data
collectors, or give them false information, we are causing ourselves our very own
harm. The scariest part is when the government or its related agencies hire us
to collect data and we think we are being smart by sitting in our own house and
fill up the ledgers with made up information. Ultimately, this data collected will
be processed and will form the basis of national decision that affect our daily
lives as Sierra Leoneans.
This tension culminated in small group activity in which we
divided trainees into 4 groups and each group was tasked to make the same
decision but each group received a varying amount of data to support them in
their decision making challenge. The first group had no data to aid them, the second
had 25% data, the third 75% and the fourth had access to all the data needed
for them to make a good decision. This was a vivid illustration of the power of
data as each group had to prepare a presentation to showcase their decision and
justify the basis of their decision.
Actually, the activity showed us also that without good data
to rely on, decision makers can still sometimes guess their way to a good
decision. However, this is what precisely we don’t want. We don’t just want
Sierra Leone’s leaders to have access to data, we want them to believe deep
down and absurdly, ensure themselves that the relevant mechanisms are put in
place to put correct data into their hands.
At the end of the day, if our leaders don’t make our daily
and long term decisions based on credible data, what are they making them based
on? Our leaders are not magicians, their decisions come from somewhere, let us
all play our own part by giving them correct information with which they can make
the decisions to mover our country forward. A food for thought for all Sierra
Leoneans.
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