Sustainable Collaboration in Resource-Limited Countries: Strategies and Overcoming Challenges

Music City Center 

Room: CC-211 

In today's interconnected world, effective collaboration across organizations, sectors, and borders is crucial, particularly in resource-limited countries. These regions face significant challenges, including inadequate infrastructure, financial constraints, and limited access to technology, all hindering development. This panel will explore cross-organizational collaboration in these settings, focusing on successful strategies, emerging opportunities, and critical challenges. Experts with direct experience in resource-limited environments will share insights through case studies, emphasizing the importance of amplifying underrepresented voices and navigating power imbalances to achieve sustainable outcomes and lasting change.
Case Study 1: During the COVID-19 pandemic, public interest in health topics surged, leading to confusion about the Mexican government's sentinel system for monitoring the virus. A group of Mexican statisticians, physicians, and epidemiologists responded by publishing an article in a popular magazine, simplifying the sentinel system for the public. This effort led to the formation of Mexicans in Statistics and Health (MES), which further clarified COVID-19 topics like testing and vaccination. MES exemplifies how specialists can bridge the communication gap between scientists and the public, making crucial information accessible during a crisis.
Case Study 2: Nepal faces challenges in advancing research, particularly in statistical science. The Nepal Statistical Society (NeSS) and the Association of Nepalese Mathematicians in America (ANMA) began collaborating four years ago, despite ANMA's long history with Nepalese mathematicians. This partnership has seen significant success, including eight Stat-Chautari seminars, R programming workshops, year-long internships for graduate students, and 28 international conference submissions. This case study highlights the ANMA-NeSS collaboration's achievements and seeks feedback from the broader community to further enhance research and education in Nepal.
Case Study 3: The National Institute on Aging's (NIA) Gateway to Global Aging Data is a platform that provides access to population survey data on aging from around the world. These data are particularly valuable as they are population-representative, longitudinal, and multidisciplinary surveys of older adults, collected using internationally coordinated instruments. The Gateway Project includes data from OECD and LMIC nations, with the goal of supporting cross-national research on aging. The platform offers a comprehensive digital library of survey questions, a search engine to find concordance information across surveys, and harmonized variables for analyses.
This session will conclude with actionable insights and recommendations on enhancing collaboration and communication, particularly in resource-limited environments. By sharing experiences, lessons learned, and practical tools, the session aims to empower participants to engage in meaningful cross organizational collaborations that contribute to sustainable development and positive change.

Yes

Business Analytics/Statistics Education Interest Group

Caucus for Women in Statistics

Committee on Scientific Freedom and Human Rights