Mary Strode

Biography

Mary Strode is a senior development statistician with considerable experience as a short and long term adviser in supporting statistical development in Africa and beyond. As a survey statistician she worked for many years as a long-term adviser in developing countries specialising in household budget surveys before being seconded to OECD/DAC by DFID where she was responsible for the development of the PARIS21 initiative, an international partnership between users and producers of statistics in support of evidence based policy making and poverty monitoring. At PARIS21 she pioneered and developed guidance for stakeholder workshops for regional and national partners in statistics, leading to national plans of action to improve their capacity for evidence based policy making. She also led much of the advocacy work in PARIS21 including the direction and scripting of a film featuring internationally prominent politicians and policy makers speaking of the importance of statistics in development processes. Since joining OPM she has carried out reviews and audits of the capacity of several developing countries to monitor development goals, and leads a three year project to reform a national statistical system. During her career she has worked as head of a developing country statistical office during its first national census and has been responsible for all stages of the statistical production cycle in developing countries and in the UK.