DRAFT 1 Asia-Pacific Regional Programme for Economic Statistics
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DRAFT Asia-Pacific Regional Programme for Economic Statistics – Screening Tool Summary of Results – Pacific sub-region One of the first activities in the Implementation Plan of the Regional Programme for Improvement of Economic Statistics in Asia and the Pacific (RPES)1 was to conduct a capacity screening of national statistics systems with the objective of providing a baseline for the implementation of the Core Set of Economic Statistics.2 The Steering Group for the Regional Programme developed a questionnaire for ESCAP member countries, which was administered to twenty-one member countries in the Pacific sub-region in March 2013, and responses were received in May 2013. Aside from those for Australia and New Zealand, all surveys were submitted by the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC). Eighteen of the responding countries filled out the questionnaires themselves and SPC completed the questionnaires for the Marshall Islands, Palau and Tuvalu. List of responding countries Lower middle-income Upper middle-income High-income Fiji American Samoa Australia Kiribati Cook Islands French Polynesia Marshall Islands Nauru Guam Federated States of Micronesia Niue New Caledonia Papua New Guinea Palau New Zealand Samoa Tuvalu Northern Mariana Islands Solomon Islands Tonga Vanuatu Based on 2011 GNI per capita, the World Bank classifies six of these countries as high- income, six more are classified as upper middle-income, and the last nine are classified as lower middle-income. Details of these classifications are provided in Annex 1. The capacity screening questionnaire has five sections: technical cooperation, institutional setting, IT and human resources, (statistical) infrastructure, and the Core Set of economic statistics. 1 E/ESCAP/CST(2)/5. Proposed regional programme for the improvement of economic statistics in Asia and the Pacific. Available at http://www.unescap.org/official-documents/committee-on-statistics/session/2 2 E/ESCAP/CST(2)/4. Proposed core set of economic statistics for Asia and the Pacific. Available at http://www.unescap.org/official-documents/committee-on-statistics/session/2 1 DRAFT Section 1: Technical Cooperation Section 1 responses for countries completing the questionnaire on their own are summarized in Table 1A, while those completed by SPC are reported separately in 1B. Questions 1.2 and 1.3 entail a judgment call on the side of the respondent hence may need to be verified. Table 1A: RPES Technical Cooperation (Self‐completed) Yes No Blank Currently involved in international technical cooperation projects and 1.1 3 3 15 programmes aimed at building capacity for economic statistics. Interested in participating in Regional Programme on Economic Statistics 1.2 (RPES) as a provider of technical assistance to other national statistical 4 2 15 systems. Interested in participating in Regional Programme on Economic Statistics 1.3 (RPES) as a recipient of technical assistance from other national statistical 3 3 15 systems and international agencies. Table 1B: RPES Technical Cooperation (SPC) Yes No Blank Currently involved in international technical cooperation projects and 1.1 13 2 6 programmes aimed at building capacity for economic statistics. Interested in participating in Regional Programme on Economic Statistics 1.2 (RPES) as a provider of technical assistance to other national statistical 6 9 6 systems. Interested in participating in Regional Programme on Economic Statistics 1.3 (RPES) as a recipient of technical assistance from other national statistical 15 0 6 systems and international agencies. New Caledonia replied “No” to all of Section 1 (Table 1A). Several respondents indicating that they are not interested in participating as a provider of technical assistance cited a lack of sufficient resources, as the main reason. 2 DRAFT Section 2: Institutional Setting The first of the five components of Section 2, statistical legislation, is summarized in Table 2. American Samoa omitted question 2.1.3 and New Caledonia marked “No” to the last three questions. Table 2: Statistical Legislation Yes No Blank Existence of a Statistical law indicating distribution of responsibilities for 2.1.1 21 0 0 producing official statistics. (If no law, skip to 2.2) Law/regulation to protect confidentiality of respondent's information and 2.1.2 21 0 0 ensure that data are used for statistical purposes only. Law/regulation requires transparent statistical system, meaning that terms, 2.1.3 19 1 1 conditions and methodologies of official statistical producers are made public. There are current/ongoing plans to modify legislation that governs the 2.1.4 8 13 0 statistical system. Statistical law protects the independence of official statistics from political 2.1.5 19 2 0 influence. Sub-section 2.2, strategic planning, begins with a question about the status of statistical strategic planning. The results by economic grouping are shown in Figure 1. Only American Samoa, French Polynesia and Northern Mariana Islands reported that no strategy is planned. The results for the remainder of sub-section 2.2, filled out by the other 18 countries, are given in Table 3. 3 DRAFT Figure 1: Status of National Statistical Strategy 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 Number of Countries 1 0 Lower middle-income Upper middle-income High-income Being Implemented Being Designed or Planned Not Planned Most omissions (questions left blank) in Table 3 were by Niue, Palau, Solomon Islands, and Tonga. All of 2.2.3 was marked “Yes” by Cook Islands, Fiji, New Zealand, Samoa, and Vanuatu. Table 3: Strategic Planning Yes No Blank 2.2.2 National strategic plan/NSDS available on public website. 3 15 1 2.2.3 Statistical strategic plan or NSDS covers/includes: 2.2.3.1 Issues relating to co-ordination across the NSS 8 7 4 2.2.3.2 Government support (and the need for improved advocacy) 19 0 0 2.2.3.3 Adequacy of existing statistical legislation 11 4 4 Detailed action plan (including specific activities, responsibilities, 2.2.3.4 10 9 0 timelines) and cost and funding sources for proposed activities 2.2.3.5 Monitoring and review process 12 3 4 In sub-section 2.3, six countries reported a centralized statistical system, while 13 countries reported semi-centralized and American Samoa, and Guam reported that their systems were decentralized (See Figure 2). 4 DRAFT Figure 2: Level of Centralization Centralized Semi-centralized Decentralized 0 5 10 15 20 Number of Countries Responses to the follow-up questions in 2.3 are given in Table 4. American Samoa and New Caledonia were the only countries to reply “No” to both questions in Table 4. Table 4: National Statistical Coordination Yes No The distribution of responsibility among agencies for producing the Core 2.3.2 15 6 Set of economic statistics is clearly specified Plans are currently being implemented or are under development to 2.3.3 16 5 improve coordination of production of economic statistics The remainder of Section 2 was a series of yes/no questions regarding dissemination and advocacy, displayed in Table 5. American Samoa skipped question 2.4.2 and replied “No” to all others aside from 2.4.4. Papua New Guinea also marked only one “Yes”, to question 2.5.3, while all of sub-section 2.5 was marked “No” by Kiribati and Palau. 5 DRAFT Table 5: Dissemination and Advocacy Yes No Blank 2.4.1 Publication policies are in place and available to users and staff 14 7 0 2.4.2 Contact points for each subject/statistical domain are publicized 14 6 1 Catalogues of publications, documents, and other services, including information 2.4.3 14 7 0 on any charges, are publically available Information on how to receive assistance understanding/interpreting data from 2.4.4 16 5 0 producing agencies are publicised for users There are current/ongoing activities to improve awareness and use of economic 2.5.1 17 4 0 statistics from official sources within countries There are current/ongoing activities in country to build analytical/research 2.5.2 capacities, develop data analysis methodologies, and increase utilization of 12 9 0 official data There is sufficient awareness, knowledge and appreciation among users/potential 2.5.3 13 8 0 users of the relevance of official statistics for economic policy Seminars or other regular opportunities for communication with users are 2.5.4 10 11 0 organized by producers of economic statistics 6 DRAFT Section 3: IT and Human Resources The first question of Section 3 asked whether each country’s IT systems were adequate for producing the Core Set. Sixteen countries replied “Yes” and Fiji, Nauru, Niue, Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands replied “No”. The second question aimed at measuring the size of economic statistics staff for each country, with a follow-up regarding the adequacy of skills. Australia and New Zealand reported economic statistics staffs of 1000 and 310, respectively, but all other countries in the sub-region reported less than 25, with 14 countries reporting less than ten staff members.3 Only Australia, New Zealand, and New Caledonia reported that their human resources were adequate for production and dissemination of the Core Set. Although the response to the question on adequacy is subjective, the overwhelmingly negative response is notable. The remainder of Section 3 is summarized in Table 6. American Samoa, Northern Mariana Islands, and Papua New Guinea replied “No” to all of Section 3. Table 6: Human Resources Yes No Human resources are adequate for producing and disseminating the Core Set of 3.2.2 4 17 Economic Statistics 3.2.3 Skills need / assessment recently conducted within your agency 17 4 3.2.4 Staff manuals/guidelines available on statistical processes for internal use 8 13 Internal processes (e.g. data editing, metadata documentation, etc.) are documented 3.2.5 11 10 for internal use and reference by new staff 3 Some countries have provided the overall number of staff due to the difficulty of delineating exactly how many staff members work on economic statistics.