Developing Sustainable Statistical Capacities: Regional Meeting 2020

1. REGIONAL MEETING OF HEADS OF STATISTICS AND PLANNINGStatistics 2020 – Developing sustainable national and regional statistical capacities12 – 16 July 2010, Noumea, New Caledonia Session 1: SDP Strategic Plan Period 2006 – 2009 Working Paper 1.3 Statistical Training Chris Ryan Statistics Advisor – Sampling Specialist Statistics and Demography Programme

2. Structure of Presentation • Training and workshops offered by SDP • What’s happened since last HOPS • Effectiveness of training involving SDP • Recommendations for consideration by conference

3. Training provided by the programme • Formal training and workshops • National • Sub-regional • Regional • On the job training • Professional Attachments

4. Recent Trainings Undertaken • Large number of technical assistance missions, especially with respect to census/survey activities • Professional attachments are down a little, with only 9 in the last 3 years

5. Effectiveness of Training Formal Training/Workshop • Feedback from trainings has been extremely favourable • Selection of participants still causing some concern. Imperative that participants: • Are chosen because of relevance • Have sufficient familiarity with subject matter • Have sufficient IT skils • Training for Survey/Census fieldwork still causing major concerns • NSOs need to place more importance on this training

6. Effectiveness of Training Technical Assistance • Technical Assistance missions are often a bit rushed, not leaving sufficient time for the skills transfer Attachments • Whilst few in number, have all been very successful • Attachments have access to all program staff • Less outside distractions

7. Proposals for Future Training 1) Development of shortened DA&RW course • Still unable to attract the most relevant participants • Not because of lack of interest • Course viewed as too long • Investigate developing a shortened version of the course, with a focus on analysis in excel, still have participants use their own data from their respective departments • Would mean less theory and the removal of the report writing component of the course • The 4 week course will still be offered by the programme

8. Proposals for Future Training 2) Linking training activities to census and survey • In recent times SDP has been working towards linking training courses to specific surveys and censuses • Project Planning and Management Training • Data Analysis & Report Writing • Metadata Documentation • Data Utilisation • Very keen to continue this approach, to make the training more relevant and worthwhile

9. Proposals for Future Training 3) Adopting contracts for field work training • Still poor attendance for field staff training from both NSO staff and temporary staff • To address the issue of poor attendance from temporary staff, make it compulsory that all temp field staff sign contracts at the start of training • Enforce rules that payment will be deducted if training missed • NSO staff must lead by example

10. Proposals for Future Training 4) Brokering Statistical Training • SDP become a stronger advocate of USP Official Statistics courses • Have input into USP courses • Teach specific technical components • SDP support countries playing a more prominent role in training their own staff • Areas such as basic IT skills like MS Excel or Word • SDP could look at conducting train-the-trainer courses to facilitate this

11. Key Discussion Points • The effectiveness of skills transfer during technical assistance • The option of developing a shortened version of the data analysis and report writing course • The adoption of stricter controls for field work training • Does the mix of training address the needs of NSSs