Dear Editor,
Guyana reported to the UNHRC on adolescent births: Addressing the data discrepancies.
In the May 10, 2025 edition of Stabroek News (SN), it has editorialized a letter in its May 9, 2025 edition, authored by Danuta Radzik and entitled “Guyana’s submission to UNHRC on adolescent births lacks correlation to other empirical data…”
Notably, the SN editorial concludes: “Ultimately, this issue transcends statistics; it speaks to the credibility of institutions and the moral responsibility of public servants entrusted with representing national realities on the world stage.
Accurate, transparent data is not merely an administrative requirement — it is a cornerstone of good governance and a prerequisite for meaningful, equitable development”.
It is unfortunate that both the letter writer and the SN editorial staff did not seek an explanation for the variances vis-à-vis a deeper analysis of the various reports, in order to understand and appreciate the differences in data source, the baseline data, time series, and methodology.
Had they done so, a simple and plausible explanation would have been derived from this procedure that accounts for the discrepancy, which has absolutely no bearing on the credibility of the data reported to the United Nations by the Government of Guyana(GoG).
In this regard, I have examined the various referenced reports by the different institutions with a particular focus on their methodologies and data sources. In so doing, the explanation for the discrepancies observed is that the various reports were based on different methodologies, estimates and assumptions.
In the case of the UNFPA report, for instance, the UNFPA conducted their own sample survey with a different baseline dataset and time series. It should be noted and appreciated that if different institutions or researchers utilize this methodology (surveys), each entity or researcher would likely generate a different sample size; different data coverage; and timelines. Therefore, the results may not necessarily be the same. There are likely to be inherent differences in the results.
Conversely, in the case of the World Bank’s Report, the dataset therein was extracted from the World Development Indicators database. And if one were to examine that database, one would quickly observe that the indicators therein are based on a completely different methodology, data source, base year, and assumptions altogether. In other words, these are estimates, as opposed to actual updated datasets.
Accordingly, now that the GoG has submitted updated data from the authentic and original source, which is the Ministry of Health, this data would eventually be used to update the world development indicators database with the appropriate adjustments to their estimates accordingly.
Evidently, these are the nuances that SN and the author of the referenced letter do not appear to understand and/or appreciate.
Sincerely,
Joel Bhagwandin
