Ethio telecom has inaugurated today an Experience Center at the Adwa Victory Memorial Museum. The center features a retrospective of telecom technological development processes, narrates the current level of technological advancement, and predicts emerging technological development trends. It is also organized to showcase the historical development stages of Ethio telecom, displaying telecom gadgets while highlighting the present and future levels of technological excellence. Launching the Experience Center, CEO of Ethio Telecom, Frehiwot Tamiru said the center provides residential and enterprise customers with the opportunity to exhibit, engage with, and experience the latest technologies firsthand. The center will also showcase existing products and services, allowing customers to test new digital technologies, and explore technological breakthroughs, she added. The center also showcases state-of-the-art technology, presenting verticals such as the health care sector, agriculture, and education, a valu able opportunity to modernize their facilities using cutting-edge solutions, it was indicated. This initiative is also designed to establish a streamlined systems capable of reducing costs, minimizing resource wastage, and enhancing overall productivity ultimately paving the way for the digital transformation of our country. It is instrumental to the ongoing efforts aimed at enhancing our country's digital economy, elevating the standard of living for citizens, and driving societal transformation through technological advancements. The center was planned to function as a testing ground for comprehensive solutions with the potential to drive significant advancements and innovation within the industry, among others, smart Home Automation, tele birr financial transactions, immersive visitor experiences, Fintech integration as well as smart agriculture techniques, smart Tourism services and remote patient monitoring. Ethio telecom has been providing telecom services in Ethiopia for 130 years. Source: Ethiop ian News Agency The legal framework of the statistical system in Tunisia needs to be revised to make it more efficient and in line with international standards and modern technological changes," said the Director General of the National Institute of Statistics (INS), Adnan Lassoued. In an exclusive interview with TAP news agency, he revealed that the general population and housing census will be carried out by the end of 2024. The national survey on violence against women, published for the first time by the institute last Thursday, showed that violence against women is rampant in Tunisian society, as it revealed that 85 per cent of the women interviewed had been subjected to violence in their lifetime. Interview: The National Institute of Statistics has published the first national survey on violence against women. What was the motivation? We noticed a great thirst among users of statistical information, whether from public institutions, civil society or international organisations, to know the extent of the growing ph enomenon of violence against women in Tunisia. The National Office of the Family and Population published a survey on this phenomenon in 2010, followed by another survey conducted by the Centre for Research, Studies, Documentation and Information on Women (CREDIF) in 2016.There was therefore a vacuum, which led us to conduct the first national survey on violence against women between November and December 2022. We hope that the results of this survey will guide policies and programmes aimed at combating violence against women, especially after the enactment of Law No. 58 of 2017 on combating violence against women. According to the results of this survey, how widespread is the phenomenon of violence against women in Tunisia? The figures show that the phenomenon of violence against women is widespread in Tunisian society. Nearly 85 per cent of women aged 15-74 surveyed throughout the country had been subjected to various forms of violence at least once since the age of 15, while 57 per cent of women, or mo re than half of the respondents, said they had been subjected to violence in the year prior to the survey. The figures also showed that 43 per cent of women, whether married, widowed or divorced, had been subjected to spousal violence by their current or former husbands in the year prior to the survey. Are you considering making the survey on violence against women a regular feature in the future? Certainly, we believe that it is necessary to conduct this survey on a regular basis in order to monitor the development of the phenomenon of violence against women, and we hope that the periodicity of such a survey will be every five years. Who funded this survey? The survey was funded by public money, i.e. the budget allocated to the National Institute of Statistics. Some people criticise the Institute for limiting its work to publishing statistics on inflation, unemployment and foreign trade, without looking at social phenomena such as violence or school drop-outs. Don't you think there is a lack of statist ical information? The statistical information of the National Institute of Statistics covers many areas and is not limited to inflation, unemployment and foreign trade, but touches on several phenomena such as the national survey on migration or the national multiple indicator cluster survey on the status of mothers and children in Tunisia, poverty and others. However, we do not deny that there are some shortcomings, which we are working to avoid at the level of regular publication of some statistics. Does the National Institute of Statistics lack the human or material resources to provide the statistical information required? There is a shortage of human resources in particular, but the State has agreed to launch an external staffing competition to recruit 10 engineers this year to strengthen the working team and give the Institute a new lease of life, as for financial resources, the State provides important financial resources to produce statistical information according to the Institute's programme. Ho w do you assess the statistical system in Tunisia and how can it be developed in the future? The statistical system in Tunisia includes many actors such as the National Institute of Statistics, the Central Bank of Tunisia, ministries and national observatories that publish statistics in various fields. Law No. 32 of 1999 regulates the national statistical system, which is a proactive law for its time and advanced compared to the legislation of other countries in the region, but today this law is 25 years old and needs to be reviewed and revised in order to give more efficiency to the statistical system and for statistical information to meet international standards, especially in light of the use of modern technologies to analyse big data, which requires new national legislation in this direction. Is the National Institute of Statistics fully independent in its work? Of course, the National Institute of Statistics produces statistical information according to its own working methods and without any interf erence, and is therefore independent in the way it produces statistics. However, it is not free to choose the statistics it produces, as this is at the request of the users of statistical information, including public structures, international organisations and civil society, all of which have an important role in the choice of topics. Some experts believe that the inflation rate is higher than what is announced, claiming that the Institute has not updated the basket used as a basis for calculating the inflation rate. What do you think? The Institute calculates the inflation rate according to an international scientific methodology, which uses the consumer basket calculated by the National Household Consumption Survey conducted by the Institute every five years. Currently, the Institute relies on the results of the National Household Consumption Survey conducted in 2015 to calculate the inflation rate, and a new survey will be conducted in 2021, but due to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic at the time, i t was decided to conduct a special survey to update the consumer basket in 2023, the results of which will be published within a month from now, and the consumer basket for 2023 will be adopted to calculate the inflation rate according to the new changes. The inflation rate is currently at 7.5 per cent, not in double digits, unlike the situation in 2023, when the inflation rate will exceed 10 per cent in April 2023. Has the Institute started preparing for the population and housing census to be completed this year? Yes, the actual counting of the general population and housing census (relating to the number of inhabitants by sex, dwellings, households, states, provinces, municipalities, districts and the centre) will start at the end of 2024, within the framework of the chronological sequence of this operation, which is carried out every ten years, the last one being in 2014. Source: Agence Tunis Afrique Presse