Strategic Statistical Planning for Pacific Islands: Challenges and Initiatives

1. UNITED NATIONS STATISTCS COMMISSION SIDE EVENTMeeting on Strategic Statistical Planning for Small Island Developing States21 February 2009, New York Overview of strategic statistical planning in the Pacific islands Gerald Haberkorn Statistics and Demography Program Secretariat of the Pacific Community Noumea, New Caledonia geraldH@spc.int

2. Structure of presentation • Providing context – basic facts and figures • Current state of Strategic Statistical Planning • Existing challenges

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 MAP LAYER PitcairnIslands SPC Member countries and territories

4. Population context • 9.5 million (2008) • increase of 2.6 million people since Cairo ICPD, 1994 • Distribution remains largely unchanged 5 largest PICTs, those comprising Melanesia, account for 86.4% of the regional population, followed by much smaller PICTs in Polynesia (7.4%) and Micronesia (6.2%). • 2/3 Pacific Islanders live in Papua New Guinea (6.5 million), followed by Fiji 840,000, Solomon Islands 520,000 • 8 countries and territories with populations of 20,000 or less (5 <10,000)

5. Our constituents –national statistics and planning agencies of 21 PICTS • Statistics agencies – technical support and training covering collections, analysis, dissemination and utilization of statistics • Planning agencies – ensure data and information needs are articulated and addressed, data easily accessible and utilized

6. Our constituents – Pacific Island NSOs

7. Current State of Strategic Statistical Planning – Pacific Island NSOs • All countries have some sort of (annual) corporate plan • Most have some reference to statistical developments in their National Development Frameworks • Up until last year – no country had a Statistical development strategy/Master plan/strategic Plan

8. Current State of Strategic Statistical Planning – Pacific Island NSOs (ctd.) Catalysts for recent development • Paris21 getting more active (including visit by Antoine Simonpietri to SPC as part of IAOS side meeting in Noumea, March 2006) • PIC development partners getting more strategic (questioning wisdom of continued ad hoc investments in statistics, without overall strategic policy / planning framework) • Growing interest by statistical agencies of Australia and New Zealand in contributing to statistical development of its PI neighbors • Individual country initiatives (Samoa) • Gentle, but persistent advocacy by SPC

9. Current State of Strategic Statistical Planning – Pacific Island NSOs (ctd.)

10. Pacific Island NSOs – key challenges, common obstacles (country views)

11. Pacific Island NSOs – key challenges, common obstacles (our views) • Endorse country views • In many countries, complete political disinterest in statistics (evidence-based decision making -> long-term process of change) • Inconsistent / ad hoc / donor-driven / or outright lacking international development support (difficult to really address – meetings like this lack the political cloud to tackle such issues; Catch22 – meetings that could tackle it, either lack interest, or the statistical knowledge) • Lack of donor coordination • Operationalizing good intentions (move from talking platitudes -> political commitment -> strategic planning ->budget allocation -> programme implementation: both by national governments and development partners)

12. Our role – where do we come in? • TA / training activities, 2008 • Upcoming challenges (SDP view) • Assist / collaborate with countries in developing sustainable systems of collections/compilations to facilitate access to real-time monitoring of development progress across sectors • Move from ad-hoc to long-term plan (and political/financial commitment) of statistical collections, and in parallel re-develop central role of administrative databases (includes development of SPC Statistics2020 strategy) • Consolidate producer-user dialogue and collaboration

13. Development of Statistics2020 • Comprehensive strategic concept note currently under discussion with AusAID and other key development partners (NZAid, ADB) • Address critical data gaps across sectors, including development of a common core set of National Minimum Development Indicators across sectors for all PICTs; • Strategic focus:provide factual basis for regular monitoring/ reporting of progress regarding national (National Sustainable Development Strategies) and international development progress indicators (e.g. MDG, CRD, CEDAW) • Operational focus: • development of long-term programme of statistical collections, commensurate with national policy/ planning requirements, not with ad hoc availability of development finance; • (re)-develop administrative databases.

14. Stock-take of available MDG indicators in15 Pacific island countries (October 2008)

15. Upcoming Statistical Collections, 2009 - 2013

16. Summary • Three-way cooperation/planning/commitment critical to success • Country: support/commitment to provision of basic statistical services and outputs, incl. statistical collections (censuses) and compilations (e.g. education and health information systems) • SPC: ongoing commitment to provide technical backstopping/ capacity building where human resources allow, with stronger focus on capacity supplementation for small island states NSOs through regional technical support team. • Development partners: long-term commitment to sustaining viable national statistical systems as indispensable prerequisite for maintaining culture of evidence-based (informed) decision-making