Managing bad weather – making greater use and better sense of statistics Gerald Haberkorn

1. High-Level Advocacy Forum on Statistics: The Urgency of Statistics and the GlobalEnabling Development in the Caribbean Community30 July, 2009, Port-of-Spain, Trinidad and Tobago Managing bad weather – making greater use and better sense of statistics Gerald Haberkorn Manager, Statistics and Demography Programme Secretariat of the Pacific Community Noumea, New Caledonia (www.spc.int/sdp)

2. Structure of Presentation • Introduction: Pacific community • Tracking the health of Pacific community’s economies and the wellbeing of its people • How can we contribute to help make greater use and better sense of statistics? • Concluding remarks

3. CNMI Guam Marshall Islands Federated States of Micronesia Palau Papua New Guinea Nauru Kiribati Tuvalu SolomonIslands Tokelau CookIslands Wallis etFutuna Samoa AmSamoa Fiji Vanuatu French Polynesia TEXT LAYER Niue New Caledonia Tonga PitcairnIslands SPC Member countries and territories MAP LAYER

4. One of hundreds

5. 1. Introduction: the Pacific Community • 15 countries, 7 territories • Population (2009): 9,7 million • Papua New Guinea (6,7 million -> Pitcairn 57 people) • 3 sub-regions: Melanesia, Micronesia, Polynesia • Substantial diversity: bio-physical environment, economies, demography, cultural and political • 0.1% of world population – 1/3 of world’s known and documented languages (700) • Considerable similarities: • Small size of domestic markets • Heavy reliance on imports • Isolation/transport challenges and costs • Dominance of public sectors • Weak manufacturing base and high cost structure

6. 2. Tracking the health of Pacific community’s economies and the wellbeing of its people Challenge: many available statistics seem less relevant to what is required to: • accurately describe the impact/implications of this crisis, • effectively contribute to the development of appropriate policy responses.

7. 2. Tracking the health of Pacific community’s economies and the wellbeing of its people Contributing factors • Almost match in conceptual relevance of what is available to what is needed. • Absence of real-time data in many cases • under-performing administrative databases • Irregularity of major collections • Long lead-time t produce outputs • General absence of data on direct (tangible/visible) impact on people and communities

8. 2. Tracking the health of Pacific community’s economies and the wellbeing of its people Illustration: annual GDP growth • Recognised indicator of performance of economy – feedback on impact of crisis • Need to determine trickle-down effect on people and households • Regular labor force surveys very important (absence across most PICs) • Reliance on censuses/HH surveys -> cannot capture real-time dynamics

9. 2. Tracking the health of Pacific community’s economies and the wellbeing of its people Illustration: annual GDP growth (ii) • Global crisis not fully materializing until the 2nd part of 2008 • 2007 figures, 2008 estimates not very informative on actual impacts on Pacific island economies today. 2. GDP volatility over past 8 years (Figures 1a-b).

10. 2. Tracking the health of Pacific community’s economies and the wellbeing of its people Figure 1a: Annual GDP (real) growth in selected Pacific island economies, 2001-2008

11. 2. Tracking the health of Pacific community’s economies and the wellbeing of its people Figure 1a: Annual GDP per capita (real) growth in selected Pacific island economies, 2001-2008

12. 2. Tracking the health of Pacific community’s economies and the wellbeing of its people Illustration: annual GDP growth (iii) • Even the very high GDP growth (>7%) / per capita growth (> 4%) in PNG/SI means little in development terms on the ground, where some 80% of populations live outside the GDP zone • contribution of subsistence produce, cultural products and traditional wealth remain largely outside such calculations, • Isolated from most basic government services or infrastructure. • Lowest MDG achievements across the region

13. 2. Tracking the health of Pacific community’s economies and the wellbeing of its people Absence of alternative indicators Challenges • Complement regular statistics on the radar of most NSOs with measures that capture individual household wellbeing, equity in the distribution of resources and the general welfare of citizens. • Engage more vigorously with data users and stakeholders • Meet current and anticipate future data needs

14. 3. How can we help contribute to help make greater use and better sense of statistics? What do we need, what can we do? • Enabling environment, facilitating conditions(Resources, functioning NSS, regular data user-producer dialogue, committed leadership, culture of evidence-based decision making) • Partnerships between data producers an users(national level, public/private sector; international) • Delivery on, and management of expectations (provide public service, adapt to changing world)

15. 4. Concluding Remarks • Partnership building, delivering on/managing expectations is ongoing work-in-progress • Progress in the making (enabled by political mandate: Pacific Plan) • Development of Minimum National Development Indicator (MNDI) databases • Core set for all Pacific island countries/territories • Mix of methodologies/measures (improvement to administrative databases; short/regular HH-based development indicator survey; socio-economic surveillance) • Development of NSS – build upon/consolidate recent achievements

16. 4. Concluding Remarks • Untie “urgency of statistics” from current crisis • tie to everyday management/decision-making Thank you.