Strategic Statistical Planning for Small Island Developing States — Concept Note —

Background With the increasing, international focus on results-based management, national policy-makers and the international development community have become increasingly aware that good statistics are part of the enabling environment for development. Strengthening statistical capacity is essential to support the design, monitoring, and evaluation of national development plans, including poverty reduction strategies, sector strategies, and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). In recent years, the international development community has come to recognise that, to strengthen statistical capacity, countries must take a strategic approach to their statistical development. The National Strategy for the Development of Statistics (NSDS) — as promoted by PARIS21 and its partners — has become a new benchmark in statistical planning. An NSDS provides a country with a strategy for strengthening statistical capacity across the entire national statistical system (NSS). The NSDS will provide a vision for where the NSS should be in five to ten years and will set milestones for getting there. The NSDS is by no means a one-size-fits-all approach; countries are encouraged to drive the NSDS design and implementation process by themselves, inspired by the methodology proposed by PARIS21 and its partners but tailored to their specific, national needs. The Division for Sustainable Development of the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, in the framework of its programme for small island developing states (SIDS), has called on PARIS21 to expand and extend its activities to address the concerns of SIDS. The purpose of the present document is therefore to outline lines of work that PARIS21 and its partners could undertake to address the statistical needs specific to small island developing states.

State of Play in the Caribbean None of the countries in the Caribbean currently have a on-going statistical strategy covering the NSS, although the Bahamas do have a strategic action plan for their central Department of Statistics. It should be noted that Jamaica has used the PARIS21 guidelines on designing an NSDS for a previous strategy, which has since expired. At an October 2008 meeting of the CARICOM Standing Committee of Caribbean Statisticians (SCCS)1, PARIS21 developed, in collaboration with its partners, a programme of support to Caribbean countries which includes regional activities (e.g., organisation of a Caribbean Statistics Day, a policymaker/statistician event to advocate for statistical development, and a technical workshop on designing and implementing NSDS) as well as national activities (e.g., reporting on statistical activities, direct assistance to country efforts to engage in NSDS processes). Partners set a target of five countries engaged in the NSDS process over the next two years.

State of Play in the Pacific The Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC) recently produced a report (2008) that highlights several issues that Pacific Island statistical offices face. While some SPC countries have recently developed some form of statistical strategy (e.g., master plan, long-term NSDS, multi-year work programme), many of the 1

See http://www.caricomstats.org/sccs33.htm 1

region’s NSOs are understaffed — half of the countries have less than a dozen statisticians. In addition, NSOs face low national demand for data, inadequate leadership and weak relations with policymakers, lack of political recognition, and poor co-ordination of statistical activities both within country and between agencies. The SPC has a medium-term statistical development strategy, Statistics2020, which favours supporting capacity-building in the NSOs of larger member states and capacity-supplementation elsewhere. The SPC has also been working with the Australian Bureau of Statistics and AusAID in implementing a support programme aimed at enhancing Pacific Island countries in project management, strategic planning, and building capacity to implement forward work plans.

State of Play in Other Regions The Indian Ocean nation of the Maldives represents an interesting case study of how crucial statistics are to a small island developing state. The December 2004 tsunami completely flooded 69 of the country’s 1,200 islands (most of which lie just 1.5 meters above sea level) and partially flooded a further 30. With climate change seriously threatening the Maldives’ very existence, President Mohamed Nasheed intends to set aside some of the US$1 billion a year the country receives from tourism to purchase a new homeland for his citizens. Obviously, this plan cannot succeed without reliable statistics on demographics, tourism and climate change among many other sectors. The Maldives currently does not have an NSDS, but one is planned. The Executive Director of the country’s Statistics Division has commented that the planned strategy will outline the statistical office’s relationship with other ministries responsible for producing sector-related statistics. Informal discussions with the statistical office have also indicated that they would be very interested in strategic guidance tailored to the needs of small island developing states and/or guidance on developing regional statistical strategies. Timor-Leste has no statistical development strategy, but two recent studies — one from an international consultant (McLennan 2007) and one from a PFTAC Statistical Advisor — reviewed the country’s statistical situation. These studies showed that significant assistance was required in relation to both statistical activities and staff development and training. The latest word from the Ministry of Finance is that TimorLeste would receive technical assistance on developing a statistical master plan starting in October 2008. The island states off the coast of Africa and the small states on the continent have already benefited significantly from partner support in NSDS processes. Cape Verde, Comoros, and Mauritius are implementing their NSDSs; and the strategies for Guinea-Bissau, São Tome, and the Seychelles are currently in the design phase. In addition, all African countries benefit from the Reference Regional Strategic Framework (RRSF) for Statistical Capacity Building in Africa. The RRSF — prepared jointly by the African Development Bank, Un Economic Commission for Africa, the World Bank, and PARIS21 — is a regional operationalisation of the Marrakech Action Plan for Statistics which, inter alia, calls on all developing countries to design an NSDS.

Issues Relating to Strategic Statistical Planning in Small Island Developing States Small Island Developing States are committed through the Mauritius Strategy (United Nations 2005) “to promoting sustainable development, eradicating poverty and improving the livelihoods of their peoples by the implementation of strategies which build resilience and capacity to address their unique and particular vulnerabilities”. These countries share similar challenges including limited resources; susceptibility to natural hazards (the adverse effects of climate change and sea-level rise present significant risks to sustainable development); 2

dependence on international trade; growth and development highly dependent on tourism (open to exogenous shocks) and marine resources; and expensive public administration due to small size. Statistics in these specific sectors will appear to be of utmost importance to these countries. In many cases, these statistics are not produced by central statistical offices, but instead may derive at least in part from administrative sources. Obviously, in such a case, co-ordination across the statistical system is required. Even in the case of a very small state in which all statistical production is centralised in a national statistical office, the number of qualified statisticians can be quite low, rendering difficult the collection of statistics outside the “classic” computation of demographic figures, national accounts, consumer price indices, etc. A recent PARIS21 report (2008) on progress in designing and implementing NSDSs in the 78 International Development Association borrower countries found that most of the countries that were not engaged in any stage of an NSDS were either fragile states or small island developing states. The reasons for this situation seem obvious: fragile states understandably often consider other priorities more pressing than statistical planning and small island developing states are often special cases with limited staff. However, another reason could be that they have not yet been convinced of the need of taking a strategic approach to statistical development or exposed to the proposed methodology. Regardless of which scenario above best describes the state of statistics in a small island developing state, an NSDS will provide much needed vision and an action plan for addressing the needs specific to the country’s situation.

Proposed Next Steps November 2008 discussions between Jamaica, CARICOM, SPC, and PARIS21 concluded that SIDS could benefit from sharing experiences across regions and guidance tailored to their unique situations. An initial meeting on strategic statistical planning for SIDS is therefore proposed for 21 February 2009, in the margins of the 40th Session of the UN Statistical Commission in New York. A proposed agenda is available in Annex I. The output of the meeting is intended to be a draft programme of NSDS support to Small Island Developing States. Elements of this support could include drafting guidance on developing regional strategies for statistical capacity building (including prioritising sectors such as tourism statistics and environmental statistics) and mobilising technical and financial resources.

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Bibliography McLennan, William (2007), Presentation on the Approach to Diagnostic http://www.adb.org/Documents/Events/2007/SCB-Asia-Pacific-Manila/W-McLennan-paper.pdf.

Study,

PARIS21 (2008), National Strategies for the Development of Statistics (NSDS): Worldwide Report on Progress and Emerging Issues, Paris, France, http://www.paris21.org/documents/3323.pdf. Saldanha, Joao M. (2007), Statistical Capacity Building For Timor-Leste: Perceptions on National Statistical System, http://www.adb.org/Documents/Events/2007/SCB-Asia-Pacific-Manila/J-Saldanha-tim-paper.pdf. Secretariat of the Pacific Community (2008), Statistics development in the Pacific, Noumea, New Caledonia, http://www.unescap.org/stat/cst/1/CST1-INF5.pdf. United Nations (2005), Report of the International Meeting to Review the Implementation of the Programme of Action for the Sustainable Development of Small Island Developing States, Port Louis, Mauritius. http://daccessdds.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N05/237/16/PDF/N0523716.pdf.

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Annex I: Agenda for the Meeting on Strategic Statistical Planning for Small Island Developing States Saturday, 21 February 2009 23rd floor of the 2 UN Plaza Building Conference Room DC2-2330 New York, NY USA Chair: Glenford Avilez, Chief Statistician, Statistical Institute of Belize

Time

Agenda Item

Presenter

10:00

Introduction / Objectives of the Meeting

Chair

10:10

Strategic Statistical Planning: an overview

PARIS21

10:25

Overview of Strategic Planning in the Caribbean

10:40

Caribbean Country Presentation of Experiences in Strategic Planning

10:55

Discussion

11:15

Overview of Strategic Planning in the Pacific

11:30

Pacific Country Presentation of Experiences in Strategic Planning

11:45

Discussion

12:05

Proposed Collaboration in Strategic Statistical Planning for Small Island Developing States

12:20

Discussion

12:55

Conclusion

CARICOM Jamaica

SPC Vanuatu

PARIS21

Chair