According to the Management of the National Institute of Statistics (NISR), the six-floor building was completed at a cost of USD $10 million (Rwf 9 billion).
Construction activities began in 2016.
The Statistics Training Center & Data Science Campus building is located at the headquarters of NISR.
It has been inaugurated this Thursday as Rwanda is hosting the 5th International Conference on Big Data which is taking place in the new state of the art building.
The Director-General NISR, Yusuf Murangwa said that the building will especially facilitate the training of Rwandans in maximizing benefits from statistics.
He explained that there is a gap inefficient use of statistics despite the vital role they play within different institutions.
“We have enough space here. We shall be dedicating time to invite all parties, including government institutions, journalist, non-governmental organizations to show statistics we made and their perceptions, how they can use them to scale up knowledge in the application of statistics in the country,” said Murangwa.
He revealed that institutions concerned with budget planning should draw emphasis on using such statistics to enhance the efficient allocation of budget and fast-track development.
“We want to train as many people as possible. Government institutions having statisticians and budget officers, officials in charge of economic affairs. It is not only in government institutions but also in the private sector. We would take them abroad for training but we shall train them here, easing our work and enabling us to train a large number,” said Murangwa.
Prime Minister Dr. Ngirente Edouard who inaugurated the new building also opened officially the 5th International Conference on Big Data.
The Premier thanked the United Nations Statistics Division and other members of the UN Global Working Group (GWG) on Big Data for Official Statistics, for having selected Rwanda to host this year’s conference.
He also hailed all international partners in statistics for their collaboration with the Government of Rwanda in organizing the conference.
Explaining the importance of the conference, the Prime Minister said that it was a good opportunity to discuss global statistical development issues. He reassured participants that their decisions and deliberations would play a key role in the development journey.
Premier Ngirente called upon all National Statistical Systems to invest in strengthening legal and policy frameworks that ease data sharing while building strong standards for data ethics and protection, to expand data access and ensure appropriate use.
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