National Strategy for Statistical Development: Optimizing Data for Policy Goals

1. NATIONAL STRATEGY FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF STATISTICS (NSDS):10 Years of Experiences in Statistical Planning O. O. AJAYI

2. OUTLINE OF PRESENTATION • Background • NSDS as benchmark for statistical planning • Preparation of guide documents for the design and implementation of the NSDS • NSDS issues – NSDS vis-à-vis SMP in the countries • Status of designs & implementation of NSDS/SMP in Africa • Funding sources for the design & implementation of NSDS • Key changes in countries that designed and implemented NSDS/SMP & in Africa

3. OUTLINE OF PRESENTATION • Effects of NSDS design and implementation on key issues: • Governance of the NSS (Management of the NSS) • Advocacy for statistics • Situation of funding statistics • User/Producer dialogue • Coordination • Statistical Capacity Building (SCB) • Global development of the NSS • Constraints to full adoption of the NSDS approach • Conclusion and Recommendations

4. BACKGROUND Introduction: • Strategic Planning for improved statistics is not a new phenomenon: • About 25 years ago, the Addis Ababa Plan of Action (AAPA) for statistical development in Africa in the 1990s was prepared by the UNECA; • General Data Dissemination System (GDDS) was another initiative developed by the IMF through which plans for improvement of statistics are developed; • Data Quality Assessment Framework (DQAF) also developed by IMF to handle data quality issues for significant improvement in statistical outputs • Multi-Annual Integrated Statistical Programme (MISP) Framework developed by Eurostat for transition countries of Eastern Europe All these have taken strategic approach to statistical development but with some lapses. Learning from the experiences of these suggested the new approach adopted for the NSDS.

5. BACKGROUND (CONT.) Introduction Cont.: • The imperativeness for developing countries and transition economies to design and implement comprehensive National Strategies for the Development of Statistics (NSDS) was accepted by the International Development Community: • Because statistics is critically essential to support policy and development framework formulation--PRSs, Sectoral plans, sub-national plans, & International Development Goals (e.g. MDGs) plus monitoring their implementation and evaluating their achievements; • Therefore Paris21 (between 2001 – 2003) through its task team examined the principles and the practical consideration of producing strategies for better statistics and thus resolved to help developing and transition countries to design and implement NSDS; and • Paris21 shifting focus on just promoting User/Producer interaction to a main thrust of NSDS development within User/Producer dialogue could be taken on.

6. BACKGROUND (CONT.) Introduction Cont.: • Marrakech Action Plan for Statistics (MAPS): While all these developments were taking place, series of international meetings deliberating on the importance of good statistics in support of results-based management, namely: • A high level forum (1st Roundtable meeting) in 2002 in Washington DC that deliberated on improving measurement of key development indicators; • Another international conference in June 2003 on improving statistics for measuring development outcomes discussed findings from Paris21 study on improved support for monitoring development goals;

7. BACKGROUND (CONT.) Introduction Cont.: • Marrakech Action Plan for Statistics (MAPS) Cont: • 2nd International round table on managing for development results (Marrakech, Feb. 2004) endorsed MAPs which among its six Actions for establishing sustainable statistical capacity and national commitment to improve statistics, and called on countries to design NSDS by 2006 with implementation to follow so as to obtain ready indicators required to evaluate MDGs by 2010; • Also in Africa, UNECA endorsed this action and went to prepare the Reference Regional Strategic Framework (RRSF) as Africa’s MAPS and was endorsed in February 2006. Of course other regions similarly embraced MAPS but not in any formal way as Africa did; and • The 3rd International Roundtable on Managing for Development Results focused on building countries’ capacity (including statistical capacity) to manage for results. Aid effectiveness which was a major concern for donors, development agencies and developing countries was the central agenda in Hanoi in February 2007.

8. NSDS AS BENCHMARK FOR STATISTICAL PLANNING • Paris21 focused efforts on encouraging and assisting all low-income and lower middle-income countries to design, implement and monitor NSDS and to: • Be nationally owned and through it produce data for the MDG indicators; • Have countries develop overall vision for where the NSS will be in 5-10 years with milestones for getting there; • Be part of the country development plans and poverty reduction policy; • Serve as a unified and comprehensive framework for continual assessment of evolving needs of users and priorities and also for international and bilateral assistance; • Build capacities needed to meet the needs of users in a more coordinated manner; • Include all parts of the data production units (covering the entire NSS); • Follow international standards and in line with the fundamental principles of official statistics including quality consciousness; address issues related to the analysis and use of data;

9. NSDS AS BENCHMARK FOR STATISTICAL PLANNING • Serve as framework for mobilizing, harnessing and leveraging resources (both national and international) and as basis for effective and results oriented strategic management of the NSS; • Build on all past and existing initiatives, activities and experiences • NSDS, indeed, is expected to provide a country with a strategy for improving development statistics across the entire NSS and has been widely accepted as a best practice which works well and should be followed by all countries; • NSDS in building capacity addresses the constraints with the system and with data products; and • NSDS design process should remain as important as the strategy document itself which includes participatory and inclusive approach along with consensus building, continuous advocacy for statistics and need for adequate investment on it (making the case for the NSDS) and use of best practices/experiences from other countries (peer learning) and consciously building an integrated and coordinated NSS.

10. PREPARATION OF GUIDE DOCUMENTS FOR THE DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF THE NSDS • Paris21 leading other partners massively prepared many guide documents for the design and implementation of the National Strategy for the Development of Statistics (NSDS); • These documents were to be used by the countries staff, consultants and any of the stakeholders involved in the design and implementation of the NSDS; • The guide documents include Best Practices Papers, NSDS document of some countries, Brochures which could be obtained on-line, distributed at workshops, various fora and meetings. These documents which are in the knowledge base of Paris21 website were prepared over years to sharpen the principles, procedures and methods of designing NSDS. This is to keep standards of what a NSDS document should be and be found uniform over countries; • Some of the guide documents are listed on the next slide while others could be found on the Paris21 website: http://www.paris21.org

11. LIST OF SOME GUIDE DOCUMENTS FOR NSDS DESIGN • CIS-STAT GOSKOMSTAT of Russian Federation ---Seminar on Strategic Planning and Programming of Statistical Activities Use and practice of SWOT Analysis ─ Eurostat, March 2004 • Guidelines for Needs Assessment and Strategic Development (NASD) [strategy for the implementation of the AAPA for statistical development in Africa in the 1990s. ─ World Bank, April 2001 • A guide to designing a National Strategy for the Development of Statistics – Paris21 (Nov. 2004). • A revised version of a guide to designing a National Strategy for the Development of Statistics – Paris21, 2013. • Making the case: National Strategy for the Development of statistics – Paris 21; Nov. 2004.

12. LIST OF SOME GUIDE DOCUMENTS FOR NSDS DESIGN (CONT.) • Measuring Up to the Measurement Problem: The role of Statistics in evidence-based policy-making (Paris21) – Christopher Scott, London School of Economics, January 2005. • Measuring Up to the Measurement Problem: The role of Statistics in evidence-based policy-making (Abridged Version), Paris21, March 2005 • Guide to drafting a Roadmap for Designing the NSDS – Paris21, Feb. 2005. • UN Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics (UNSC). • Statistics for Transparency, Accountability and Results: A five Point Action Plan – Busan Action Plan – Paris21, Oct. 2011.

13. LIST OF SOME GUIDE DOCUMENTS FOR NSDS DESIGN (CONT.) • Handbook on Data Quality: Assessment Methods and Tools – European Commission, 2007. • Developing a Policy-Based National Strategy for the Development of Statistics, - Paris21 Document Series #5, March 2007. • Data Quality Assessment Framework – IMF, July 2003 • Mainstreaming Sectoral Statistical Systems in Africa: A guide to planning a coordinated NSS – AfDB, Intersect; Paris21 (Nov. 2007) • NSDS Approach in a Nutshell, Paris21 • Reference Regional Strategic Framework (RRSF) for Statistical

14. LIST OF SOME GUIDE DOCUMENTS FOR NSDS DESIGN (CONT.) • Capacity Building in Africa; ─ ECA/AfDB/WB/Paris21 (Feb. 2006) • Statistical Capacity Building Indicators – Paris21 (Sept. 2002) • Strategy for Statistical Development: An Introductory Note – Jean Le Nay, Paris21, Oct. 2009 • Why Statistics are crucial – Paris21 • Why (Country name) needs good statistics – series of pamphlets developed by Paris21 for several countries (e.g. Zimbabwe, Liberia, Sudan, etc.)

15. NSDS ISSUES – NSDS VIS-À-VIS SMP IN THE COUNTRIES Statistical Master Plan (SMP) in its design has detailed assessment of the National Statistical System (NSS), strategies for its further development with goals and targets at the medium term and Action Plan to put it into effect. But focusing on the National Statistics Offices (NSOs): • It violates the principles to be adhered to while designing a NSDS (entire NSS not covered, not an involving consultation; not deeply participatory; not really country owned etc.); • Challenges of sectors and sub-national entities are not directly addressed leaving the Sector Statistical Systems (SSSs) and the Sub-national Statistical Systems (SnSSs) with weak statistical capacity for the sub-systems and hence weak NSS; • SSSs and SnSSs are not mainstreamed into the NSS as it is expected for the NSDS; • Most countries started with implementing SMPs and only recently some are attempting the NSDS approach;

16. NSDS ISSUES – NSDS VIS-À-VIS SMP IN THE COUNTRIES (CONT.) • Uganda, Sudan and lately Burkina-Faso, Kenya, Mali, Niger are now mainstreaming sectors into the NSDS and Uganda has indeed mainstreamed sub-national statistical systems districts; • Efforts must be made to include sectoral concerns. While this process has usually taken longer, it has often resulted in a more comprehensive strategy and one which has wide support across government – the true NSDS!; • It is only a true NSDS that could be rightly mainstreamed into the National Development Plans and other Policy processes; not a SMP; • Uniform statistical development is possible only through NSDS where each sector, sub-national entity has its individual sectoral/sub-national strategies for the Development of Statistics which are building blocks for the NSDS and all the sectoral strategies, sub-national strategies implemented along with the NSDS; • There are methods specified in the mainstreaming document for dealing with the sectoral strategies with the benefits derivable from the mainstreaming

17. FRAMEWORK FOR BUILDING A COORDINATED NATIONALSTATISTICAL SYSTEM (NSS) Mainstreaming for a Coordinated NSS • To mainstream sectoral statistical systems (SSS) into the National Statistical System (NSS) adopting best practice • Need to define what objectives to be achieved; and • What strategies to adopt to achieve them • Four key objectives have been identified, namely: • Make more efficient use of resources ( with 5 strategies) • Improve the productivity of data management (with 2 strategies) • Increase the availability of quality data (with 4 strategies) • Raise the public profile for statistics (with 1 strategy) • A total of 12 strategies • Could be put and be better understood in a FRAMEWORK FRAME WORK

19. STATUS OF DEVELOPING STRATEGIES IN THE COUNTRIES IN AFRICA

20. STATUS OF DEVELOPING STRATEGIES IN THE COUNTRIES IN AFRICA (CONT.)

21. STATUS OF DEVELOPING STRATEGIES IN THE COUNTRIES IN AFRICA (CONT.)

22. STATUS OF DEVELOPING STRATEGIES IN THE COUNTRIES IN AFRICA (CONT.)

23. STATUS OF DEVELOPING STRATEGIES IN THE COUNTRIES IN AFRICA (CONT.)

24. FRAMEWORK FOR BUILDING A COORDINATED NATIONALSTATISTICAL SYSTEM (NSS) (CONT.) Mainstreaming for a Coordinated NSS (cont.) • Plans had taken place more in Sub-Saharan African Countries with nothing less than 90% coverage of the countries when compared with 59% of Arab States,54% of Asia and Pacific region,56% of Latin America and the Caribbean region. The coverage in Eastern Europe is not available as at writing this presentation; • Most of the strategies were of the SMP type but all the same named as a NSDS. There is need to follow the NSDS principles • Implementation has also been weak for various factors but majorly for financial reasons.

25. FUNDING SOURCES FOR THE DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF THE NSDS/SMP Introduction • Countries have recognized the need for better data to guide policies for poverty reduction and social and economic development and were therefore eager to improve their statistical capacity to produce the required and relevant statistics. • At the beginning of having to implement the MAPs with respect to the NSDS design, an estimate of $118 million was going to be needed – a huge resource requirement; • Sources TFSCB: • A multi-donor Trust Fund for Statistical Capacity Building (TFSCB) was designed to improve the capacity of developing countries to produce and use statistics. World Bank’s TFSCB therefore provides grants for the preparation of NSDS; • TFSCB works closely with Paris21 to advance coordinated international efforts to improve statistics; • TFSCB is supported by contributions from UK, Canada, Netherlands, Germany, France and Switzerland and administered by the World Bank (WB); • Late 2004, TFSCB was restructured to allocate greater financial resources to support the preparation of the NSDS for low-income countries

26. FUNDING SOURCES FOR THE DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF THE NSDS/SMP (CONT.) • Sources – STATCAP: • STATCAP is a multi-country SCB programme and for easy access for WB financing for statistical capacity. It is financed through IBRD or IDA as specific investments credits or loan; • Criteria for qualification for the fund are: • Designed NSDS or SMP available; • National commitment and leadership to strengthen NSS; • Willingness to comply with good statistical practice; • Participation in global development and monitoring activities; • Use of sustainable implementation arrangements. • STATCAP addresses: • Statistical policy and regulatory plus institutional framework (legal framework, mechanisms for efficient management and coordination; • Developing statistical infrastructure (Business Register, Enumeration Area Sampling frame, classifications, database structures, GIS, Compendium of standards etc.); • Statistical operations & procedures; human resources development; • Physical infrastructure and equipment.

27. FUNDING SOURCES FOR THE DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF THE NSDS/SMP (CONT.) • Sources – Statistics for results Facility – Catalytic Fund (SRF – CF): • The SRF – CF is a product of recent global discussions on scaling up support for statistics and in line with the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness (advocating strong commitments to harmonize and align aid delivery by the donor community; • The Goal is to increase developing countries capacity to formulate development policies and for evidence-based decision-making through sustained improvement in production, availability, quality and use of statistics for managing and measuring development results. The SRF – CF is to support this goal including: • Stimulate support for implementing National Statistical Plans (NSDS, SMP); • Promote a system-wide approach in statistics at country level; • Promote improved coordination and partnership between users and statistical producers; • Deliver more efficient and effective aid and technical assistance for strengthening statistical systems and results measurement.

28. FUNDING SOURCES FOR THE DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF THE NSDS/SMP (CONT.) • Sources – Statistics for results Facility – Catalytic Fund (SRF – CF): • Piloting the scheme obtained money from UK and Netherlands before extending it to more countries; • Eligibility: • Country must have NSDS/SMP/NSP and be willing to establish National Partnership in Statistics; • Should agree to: • Exercise leadership over their statistical development by preparing good quality, comprehensive, realistic, prioritized and costed National Statistical Plan; • Allocate resources and carry out necessary administrative reforms for proper implementation of NSP; • Take the lead in coordinating donor and government support through the creation of National partnership; • Put into effect the UN Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics, in particular to ensure that users have confidence in the quality and integrity of national statistics; and • Monitor progress in statistics and statistical capacity based on outputs and outcomes indicators.

29. FUNDING SOURCES FOR THE DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF THE NSDS/SMP (CONT.) • Source – Other Development Partners: There are multilateral agencies, bilateral donors that gave support directly to the countries and these include: • UNDP, UNFPA, IMF, European Commission; • Development Banks. In particular the African Development Bank took deliberate decision to assume responsibility to support the preparation of strategies and implementation of them for all African countries; • Bilateral donors – DFID, NORAD, SIDA, CIDA, etc. • Sources – Country Governments: Some countries released funds from the National budgets. In particular South Africa financed its strategies, Lesotho gave some reasonable amount during the design of their last strategy to mention only some examples.

30. KEY CHANGES IN COUNTRIES DUE TO DESIGNED AND IMPLEMENTED NSDS/SMP IN AFRICA • The immediate positive developments that became obvious to the African Statistical System and the Countries’ NSSs in Africa were the following: • Many African countries in very large proportion revised their very archaic Statistics Acts and new laws now govern the statistics activities of the countries; • Substantial improvement took place with the infrastructures of the agencies including physical, statistical and ICT infrastructures. Some NSOs got new office buildings, vehicles for survey implementation and ICT equipment and systems; • In particular the unavailable statistical infrastructures were developed including compendium of standards, sampling frames, Business Register, etc.; • Institutional reforms took place with many NSOs upgraded and the Chief Executives raised 1 or 2 levels above what they were and at par with the highest position in the civil services; • The agencies became semi-autonomous with opportunities for handling their own management issues; • In some cases, the conditions of service and pay were reasonably improved; • Improved organizational arrangements that improved career prospects of the staff generally;

31. KEY CHANGES IN COUNTRIES DUE TO DESIGNED AND IMPLEMENTED NSDS/SMP IN AFRICA (CONT.) • Coordination of the NSS and within agency coordination improved significantly; there are now coordination structures created in the agencies; • At the apex of the organization are Boards/Councils which serve as buffers between the agency and the government which enhances quickness of actions and statistical operations; • Slightly improved statistical outputs that have reasonable quality levels; and At Regional Level: • The Africa Statistical System became better coordinated and a lot of collaboration works going on among the regional organizations – UNECA, AfDB, AUC and all sub-regional organizations and the country NSOs all working well together under institutional arrangements [Africa Statistics Coordinating Committee, Statistical Commission for Africa (StatCom-Africa), Africa Symposia for Statistical Development (ASSD)]; • Better monitoring of the implementation of RRSF/NSDS/SMP within Africa; and • AfDB took on responsibility for Statistical Capacity Building in Africa, which role has significantly improved statistical outputs.

32. EFFECTS OF NSDS DESIGN AND IMPLEMENATION ON KEY ISSUES The actions to design and implement NSDS/SMP brought some positive changes with respect to some key issues and these are: • Governance of NSS(Management of the NSS); where full principles of the NSDS were observed and even in the case of a partial strategy as in the case of the SMP, the components of the NSS have been better coordinated and therefore better managed. The structures of the NSS like the User/Producer Committee, Producer/Producer Committee are working more effectively and efficiently. The Board/Council are generally responsive to the needs of the NSS; • Through Advocacy programme both during the design and implementation of the NSDS, Statistics has been better advocated for. A lot of advocacy tools are available making the role of statistics better understood; • Investment in statistics improved slightly but a lot more are needed than is currently given for statistical development; • User/Producer dialogue improved right from the design stage of the NSDS in which stakeholders had to work on the design process. The User/Producer Committees are established and are meeting. Improvement will be incremental as the years roll by;

33. EFFECTS OF NSDS DESIGN AND IMPLEMENATION ON KEY ISSUES (CONT.) • Coordination of the NSS and within sub-systems has improved. During the design of the NSDS, the stakeholders worked together and that has been carried into the implementation stage. Also coordination mechanisms and structures have been established and coordination was no more in a flux. Now all data production agencies and NSO have coordination units and directorate respectively and these took on the responsibilities of within and across the NSS coordination; • Statistical Capacity Building (SCB): As the NSDS got designed, one of the Action Plans was the implementation of SCB programme. As implementation progressed so also would improvement in the capacities would be improving. The only thing that could limit the acceleration of the improvement would be inadequacy of fund to implement the programme; • Global Development of the NSS: The critical requirements of this will be the design of a proper NSDS with Sector Strategy for the Development of Statistics (SSDS) also designed. That guarantees that there would be the strengthened NSS. The development of Statistics will then be uniform across the entire NSS. Necessary to therefore have sectors mainstreamed into the NSS.

34. CONSTRAINTS TO FULL ADOPTION OF THE NSDS APPROACH TO STATISTICAL PLANNING • There are constraints that could rob us of the full benefits of improving national statistics through the design and implementation of the NSDS. These constraints are the following: • The NSDS has not been mainstreamed into the National Development Frameworks and other policy processes and as such will find it difficult to have appreciable budget from the National and Sectoral Budgets. Statistics then fail to be regarded as a cross- cutting sector that ought to be funded as the other sectors leading the country to perpetual dependence on Donor fund. Only two(2) countries have mainstreamed NSDS into the National Development Plan; Nigeria and Uganda. Every effort needs be exerted to see this philosophy accepted by the country authorities; • Another constraint is the non-mainstreaming of sectors into the NSS as result of choosing to have a strategy to focus on the NSO – SMP. This is against one of the principles of the NSDS design process. We can only reap non-uniform statistical capacity across the NSS. This is the situation as at now; • There were delays in getting fund from some sources as a result of cumbersome procedure of accessing the fund. The culprit of this occurrence is the STATCAP source with processing taking as long as 2-3 years. This can only bring frustration in the implementation of the NSDS with the consequence of dampened enthusiasm.

35. CONSTRAINTS TO FULL ADOPTION OF THE NSDS APPROACH TO STATISTICAL PLANNING (CONT.) • Government support for statistical development is still very little and government leadership still must be made to appreciate the role of statistics in achieving progress for the country; • There are many consultants working in Africa who design SMP instead of the NSDS because the demand for going through NSDS design process is too tedious and takes time and they were usually in a hurry to finish writing the document. This slows down the pace of statistical development in a country. The mainstreaming of sectors into the NSDS is a necessity and the consultants must be re-orientated and better trained to follow all the principles for the design of the NSDS. The guide manual on mainstreaming is not being used to guide the process which had been one reason why consultants have not mainstreamed sectors into the NSDS; • Lack of effective and realistic programme of reforms and of investments that are supported by government and partners; • Lack of effective implementation plans and absence of effective engagement with donors; • The problem of managing reform and reorganization at the same time as maintaining and improving statistical outputs; • Load on statistical agencies in dealing with different donors’ reporting and management procedures.

36. CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS Conclusion: A well designed and implemented NSDS certainly will move a country to a data-rich nation which gives better results management. Also NSDS depends on the preparation process which includes: • Design process; • Involvement of policy makers; • Level and breadth of consultations; • Early engagement with donors; • Use of and building of local expertise; • Integration of the NSDS into NDP; • Coverage of the entire NSS; • Sequenced and prioritized reform programme; and • Monitoring a results framework for the NSDS.

37. CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS Recommendations: Critical recommendations include: • Ensuring the mainstreaming of the NSDS into the National Development Plan as this leads to considering statistics as a development sector that will receive funding like other sectors; • Statistical development should cover the entire NSS if there would be uniform upgrading of statistical capacity and this implies that Sector Strategies for the Development of Statistics (SSDSs) are mainstreamed into the NSDS; • Use of all guide documents should be encouraged and indeed formal training should be arranged for prospective consultants on the design process of the NSDS;

38. CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS (CONT.) Recommendations (cont.): • Investment in statistics should be increased starting with enhanced resource inputs from the national and sectoral budgets. Strategies must be developed to create national statistics fund that will be well managed. A successful example of education fund created in some countries is an indication that an establishment of a National Statistics Fund will succeed; • Other sources of funding statistics, namely TFSCB, STATCAP and SRF – CF should be restructured to ensure easy access and quick release of fund for the implementation of the NSDS;

39. CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS (CONT.) Recommendations (cont.): • Increased advocacy for the importance of statistics at the highest political level internationally could change the way the national political leadership thinks of the role of statistics in the development of country. Policy and political leadership must invest more in statistics and should use statistics for all critical decision-making. If the UN could hold a general assembly to discuss on international development goals, similar conference could be held on statistics since statistics and development are so inter-related. The recent endorsement of the UN Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics is a good thing to happen to statistics and an indication that a general assembly on statistical development is a high possibility. Paris21 is enjoined to start the process for this.

40. Thank you for Your attention