October 25th, 2010 by Jason

Writing at The Guardian’s Comment is Free, Brian Whitaker takes Egypt to task for its failure to report basicĀ statistics about its economy: “Imagine trying to govern a country that lacks adequate statistics about economic activity, healthcare, crime, education, urban development and environmental pollution. Imagine a country that relies heavily on tourism but has no figures showing why people visit or what they think of their stay. Imagine a country that relies heavily on agriculture, and yet has produced no data on the quality of cultivable land since the 1970s.” Whitaker cites a recent report by the Egyptian government that exposes the lack of reliable information on a number of issues. The selective usage of statistics by governments to control perceptions about their country is common throughout the world. Whitaker lists Lebanon’s failure to conduct a census since 1932, the lack of data on the number of Coptic Christians in Egypt, and the sensitivity of regimes in Morocco, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan to opinion polling as examples of the power of statistics.

Posted in Civil Society, Egypt, Freedom, Lebanon, Morocco, Saudi Arabia |