Ten-Year Pacific Statistics Strategy, 2011 – 2020

1. FAO-UNFPA-SPC Regional Training Workshop on Linking Population and Housing with Agricultural Censuses28 May – 1 June, Noumea, New Caledonia Pacific Islands Agricultural Statistics and the Ten-Year Pacific Statistical Strategy (TYPSS) 2011 - 2020 Gerald Haberkorn Manager, Statistics for Development Programme Secretariat of the Pacific Community Noumea, New Caledonia geraldH@spc.int (www.spc.int/sdp)

2. Ten-Year Pacific Statistics Strategy, 2011 – 2020 • To progress matters pertaining to improving access to essential statistics and associated indicators to inform on social and economic development, the region has embarked on an ambitious Ten Year Pacific Statistics Strategy. • Rationale for its development: Political pressure/mandate by Pacific Forum (region’s heads of Government, including Aus and NZ) in its 2005 Pacific Plan, to • strive for greater harmonization of statistical concepts, measures, classifications and systems to provide comparable statistics across the region; • Develop a core set of development indicators across key sectors.

3. 1. Political context – growing awareness and greater recognition of statistics Recent developments at national level (a) • Samoa, Tonga, Papua New Guinea (2010): • strong political support with prime ministers of Samoa and Tonga, and the National Executive Council of PNG endorsing in 2010 the development of National Strategies for the Development of Statistics (NSDS), jointly undertaken by a PARIS21-SPC partnership, • Solomon Islands, Vanuatu (2011) • Second group of countries expressing interest to develop their own NSDS in partnership with Paris21/SPC (consultations with both countries to develop NSDS roadmap in March 2012, with draft reports to be submitted to both Governments by June. • Cooks Islands (2012) • Recent expression of interest to participate in NSDS process

4. 1. Political context – growing awareness and greater recognition of statistics Growing recognition at all levels (b) • need for regional solutions to address national statistical demands and priorities that do not undermine the statistical sovereignty of small island states; • regional solutions to be complemented (in most cases preceded) by national solutions • illustrated in the insufficient allocation of resources to NSOs to undertake basic statistical work (including undertaking routine statistical collections) and regularly providing a regionally agreed-to standard set of statistics and indicators.

5. 1. Political context – growing awareness and greater recognition of statistics Recent developments at international level • Statistics becoming a politically acceptable discussion point in policy debates and aid negotiations (beyond perennial complaints about timeliness, quality, lack of accessibility) • Statistics on this year’s FEMM agenda (2 – 4 July, Tarawa) • This is largely due to the emergence of, and sustained efforts and commitment to the cause by Paris21 over the past decade.

6. 1. Political context – growing awareness and greater recognition of statistics Growing recognition at all levels • Existing/growing demands for national and regional statistics cannot be met by adhering to the status quo; • most small island states NSOs are not in a position, and most likely will never be in a position to collect and compile, tabulate and analyse, report and disseminate everything required (let alone desired), and even less so – do this on their own • RESULT: • development of TYPSS, and associated action plans • Pacific Statistics Strategy Action Plan, Phase 1 (2011-2014)

7. 2. Designing a regional statistical strategy in the Pacific island region Pacific Statistics Strategy Action Plan, Phase 1 (2011-2014) Outlines: • six key strategic objectives guiding statistical development in the Pacific Island region over the next decade; • Specific activities to be undertaken to achieve these objectives ; • Purpose as well as the importance of each activity, and what would be missed by not implementing each activity, • Expected outcomes of each activity, • Activity costs (for Phase 1 only), and • Potential partnerships with other statistics providers and agencies with distinct comparative advantages .

8. 3. TYPPS, 2011 – 2020 Relevance to Agriculture/Forestry, Fisheries? • With the vast majority of Pacific island people sustaining their livelihoods through economic and subsistence activities in these sectors, the sustainable statistical collections of a core set of statistics and associated development indicators in this field represents a key objective in Phase 1 of the Pacific Statistics Action Plan (2011 – 2014). • Political mandate + regional statistical development strategy / framework provides basis for “good fit” with FAO Global strategy.

9. 3. TYPPS, 2011 – 2020 Where are we heading, what are we aiming for? • Given political mandate (Pacific Plan) on one hand, and considering what is manageable by largely small and resources-poor national statistical agencies, TYPSS’ overall strategic focus is to pursueregional solutions to address national statistical demands and priorities. • Relevance to theme of this workshop? • Five key priorities for us, which have tangible synergies with the “Global Strategy to improve Agricultural and Rural Statistics”

10. 3. TYPPS, 2011 – 2020 [1] Develop a core set of agricultural/forestry and fisheries indicators, undertake a data inventory (gap analysis) and NSS capacity assessment to collect the underlying statistics. • Stage 1: complete 15 core indicators developed for agriculture and forestry, and 19 for Fisheries, in consultation with key technical stakeholders • Stage 2: work in progress Consultation with countries to validate identified/reported • Data values • Data gaps

11. 3. TYPPS, 2011 – 2020 Agriculture: • Overall coverage across countries was / remains shocking (25/10/11)(considering sector critical for sustainable livelihoods of vast majority of PIC population)

12. 3. TYPPS, 2011 – 2020 Agriculture: • PNG, as largest/most resource-rich country in region has not had an agricultural census since 1963, and third-largest country, Solomon islands never had one. • Situation with fisheries statistics similar last year,: cross-regional coverage below 20%; recent access to Pacific-wide fisheries sectoral review , inclusive of targeted data-mining ,increased coverage to 78%. • Testing the water in Tonga (and 3 other countries) in late 2011 by emulating the Fisheries sectoral review, improved coverage of 15 key agricultural/forestry indicators from 13% to 67%. • Lesson learned (yet again): not readily accessible data/statistics doesn’t mean they don’t exist, but require intensive digging/ data mining.

13. 3. National Minimum Development Indicator data audit – background and progress report

14. 3. TYPPS, 2011 – 2020 Stage 3: proposed for 2nd half of 2012 • Replicate Tonga approach in other countries • Provide national and key financial and technical stakeholders with opportunity for final review/comments • Proposed collaboration with FAO in context of Global strategy: • Review and populate our core set to ensure compatibility with FAO’s Menu of Indicators for Agricultural Statistics as outlined in the “Global Strategy to improve Agricultural and Rural Statistics.” • Ensure key data/information demands from other sectors / stakeholders are adequately addressed (e.g. food security, national accounts)

15. 3. TYPPS, 2011 – 2020 [2] Recognize important contribution of AFF to Pacific Islands GDP (through formal contributions AND via subsistence and informal activities) • AFF statistics collected in censuses, household surveys and other thematic statistical collections (e.g. crop estimation surveys, studies on farm management, on cost of cultivation; ad hoc statistical collections concerned with prices and production relating to agriculture) need to pay greater attention to data requirements for National Accounts. Proposed collaboration with FAO in context of Global strategy: • Closer collaboration with between SPC-SDP, PFTAC and FAO towards improving the collection and compilation of AFF statistics on a regular basis for the production of National Accounts, including the implementation of the 2008 SNA.

16. 3. TYPPS, 2011 – 2020 [3] Develop core agricultural/forestry/fisheries statistics module for inclusion in regular Household surveys, to produce • much needed sectoral baseline information, and • provide statistical evidence to make a business case for some countries pursuing regular fully-fledged Agricultural censuses. Proposed collaboration with FAO in context of Global strategy: • Given many competing demands for sectoral statistical collections, small island countries are unlikely to implement more comprehensive household survey programs than their current focus on HIES and DHS. • Given obvious thematic synergies with HIES, seek FAO technical advice on substance matters (core questions) and questionnaire design, to ensure optimal statistical coverage with a limited number of questions.

17. 3. TYPPS, 2011 – 2020 [4] Assist countries pursuing the development of National Strategies for the Development of Statistics (NSDS) to integrate (mainstream) agricultural/rural statistics into this strategy Proposed collaboration with FAO in context of Global strategy: • With SPC working principally in partnership with PARIS-21 in the region, it would be beneficial for both parties here to leverage off FAO’s experience in other countries.

18. 3. TYPPS, 2011 – 2020 [5] Increase advocacy with Pacific island NSOs to include core agricultural census questions in their population censuses in the upcoming 2020 round of population and housing censuses. Proposed collaboration with FAO in context of Global strategy: • With FAO and UNFPA playing key roles in this area, and possibly also PARIS-21, ensure agricultural statistics are mainstreamed into countries’ national statistical systems, recognizing that Population and Housing censuses provide the statistical foundation for Pacific Islands national statistical systems. Thank you