Dr. Gamini de Silva assumes office as new head of IASSSL to enhance data-driven decision making

Thursday, 6 April 2017 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

Veteran lecturer and statistician Dr. Gamini de Silva has been appointed as the new president of the Institute of Applied Statistics of Sri Lanka (IASSL) with objective of localisation of businesses paradigm to suit the country and the people. IASSL is focusing on trying to find alternative strategies to solve contemporary socio economic issues, which arise from lack of proper information flow among the stakeholders. The vast gap between producer prices and the market prices of many consumer items, plight of the migrated workers, disparity in education service delivery by region are a few areas identified by the IASSL. At the same time, IASSL is planning to devise mechanisms and strategies for standardisation of proper use of data in decision making.

Dr. Gamini de Silva holds B.Sc. First Class honours from Peradeniya (1976) and post graduate diploma in Statistics from Sri Jayawardenapura University followed by one from the US Bureau of Census in USA (1980/81). He obtained a Masters degree in Labour Studies from the University of Colombo (1996)and Ph.D. in Applied Statistics (2000) completing a research study on constructing Composite Index of Human Development for developing countries.

He served the Department of Census and Statistics (DCS) for 30 years conducting national sample surveys and censuses, compiling, analysing and dissemination of socio economic data and developing capacities of technical staff and retired as the deputy head of the DCS to join the United Nations. Subsequently, he joined the Statistical Institute for Asia and the Pacific in Tokyo in 2007 as a fulltime Lecturer/Statistician, serving as an employee of UNESCAP for six years serving 55 countries in the Asia Pacific region to build their statistical capacities on Social statistics including Poverty, Gender, Human Development, MDGs, statistical methods and applications and the use of Statistical software for data analysis. His consultancy experience spans across serving the Government of Sri Lanka and the UNDP in Monitoring MDGs in 2004 through conducting Joint Needs Assessment Survey in Sri Lanka in 2014.

After assuming the post of president of IASSL, Dr. Gamini de Silva has explored his vision and plans for immediate future for IASSL to promote: Enhanced facilities for Membership, Training and capacity development in Statistics, Statistical consultancy services on Survey Research, Popularising statistics among other professions and in education system and promoting the correct use of data/information. As such, the mission ahead is to devise benefit plans for members, improve infrastructure facilities and be connected and be proactive in service delivery on the above zones. Their future pathway is to get actively involved in the policy and programme formulation dialogues related to development concerns in the country specifically in relation to achieving the globally-renowned sustainable development goals.

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