What can numbers tell us about who we are—and where we're going?

Former Statistician-General Dr Pali Lehohla has spent much of his career trying to make South Africa visible to itself.

In this episode of Context, he joins Sebenzile Nkambule for a fascinating conversation about the relationship between data, democracy and leadership.

They begin with migration and the extraordinary claims being made about how many undocumented people live in South Africa. But the conversation quickly expands into a much bigger question: what happens when public policy becomes disconnected from evidence?

Lehohla argues that statistics have little value unless they connect to planning, political will and resources. He reflects on South Africa's abandonment of scenario planning, the relationship between unemployment an ...