Preliminary ideas for the Extension of the MEDSTAT III programme

Transcription

1 Doc. MedDC/2011/2.4 ANNUAL MEETING OF THE DIRECTORS OF THE NSIS OF THE MEDITERRANEAN ENP COUNTRIES Hilton Hotel Istanbul 13 April 2011 Preliminary ideas for the Extension of the MEDSTAT III programme Medstat team Point 2.4 on the Agenda 1

2 1. Introduction The European Commission agreed to extend the contract for the implementation of the MEDSTAT III project on the following terms: The total budget of the project is enhanced by 3M The duration of the contract is until 31 st December Technical activities will take place mainly before summer 2013, while the remaining period will be devoted principally to the phasing out of MEDSTAT III and the transition to the post-medstat cooperation. In order to reach the objectives of MEDSTAT III with the enhanced means allocated for its implementation, we propose the following evolution with respect to the initial allocation: incidental expenditure is doubled; the number of working days of STE is doubled; the number of working days of KE is increased by more than one-third. The project overall objective, purposes and expected results remain unchanged. The additional budget and timeframe means shall be used to reinforce and develop activities in the sectors covered by the project, to allow a better sustainability of the expected results and to prepare and achieve a smooth transition to a post-medstat III framework for the Euro-Mediterranean cooperation in statistics. 2. Orientations for the extension: thematic sectors The concrete work programme for the extension will be prepared, for the thematic priority sectors, in collaboration with the sector Task Forces (TF). Only the TF that took place between December 2010 and January 2011 had the occasion of discussing about the technical priorities, given that the contract was amended in December As a second round of TF will take place in the second half of 2012, the concrete work programmes will be discussed at that occasion. Some orientations can be however given for the extended contract: The priority sectors remain unchanged: Agriculture, Energy, Migration, Social, Trade and Transport statistics as thematic issues, plus Training and Dissemination as horizontal issues; Data use becomes a major issue which deserves an expended follow-up; The reinforcement of technical and managerial capacities of NSSs should be considered; The regional cooperation post-medstat III should be actively prepared; Some publications should be issued. The participants of the TF provided insight on the additional topics that could be tackled. The following sections describe the topics that may be considered under each sector, and are recalled for discussion by the Directors Committee. 2

3 2.1. Suggested topics for the Agriculture sector While the cooperation will continue to focus on harmonisation, a major contribution to the future of agriculture statistics is the preparation of national strategies for this sector (which includes a large number of statistics producers and operations). This activity could be extended to more countries in the region than initially foreseen, as there is an impetus as a consequence of the Global Strategy for Strengthening Agricultural Statistics. Suggestions for additional topics to be considered in the extended period included: Economic Accounts for Agriculture Agri-environmental indicators Forestry statistics Analysis of Agricultural Census data Production estimates by remote sensing 2.2. Suggested topics for the Energy sector The activity in this sector can be extended with an additional focus on data dissemination and its use, in particular of Energy Balances and indicators of Energy Efficiency, by decision-makers, as well as going towards a sharing of the knowledge concerning the development of the energy balances and the principal indicators of efficiency. If countries consider the implementation of Final Energy Consumption surveys in the transport sector, additional work could be undertaken on the analysis and use of the resulting data. A regional publication could be envisaged for Energy statistics Suggested topics for the Migration sector The methodological work for the development of Migration surveys should be complemented once it will be completed by data collection activities which remain a responsibility of partner countries. In the case that this data collection is delayed or not implemented, the activity in the sector could be phased out. In the positive scenario where countries engage technical and financial resources for the implementation of Migration surveys, the activity would be focused on the data analysis, evaluation and dissemination of results Suggested topics for the Social sector The TF discussed the potential areas of technical assistance and cooperation that could be considered with the additional resources for MEDSTAT III, or for regional cooperation after the project ends. The extension of the MEDSTAT III specifically provides resources for widening the social statistics sector scope by including health statistics. This sub-sector has not been treated before and there is a high level of demand by the countries to make progresses in the field of harmonisation. The expertise in this sector will be strengthened with additional resources in the form of expert days and the possibility of holding specialised events (assessment missions followed by a regional workshop). Other topics that could potentially be dealt with in the extended period: 3

4 Develop the production and dissemination of gender statistics (already considered in the process of harmonization of social indicators); Support the introduction of multidimensional methodology of poverty measurement; Support the introduction of new statistical methodologies for measuring the impact of social policies at the national and sub-national levels; Promote the use of administrative records (vital statistics, population, education, health, employment, social security) for cross-analysis with survey data; Support the design and implementation of Time-use surveys Suggested topics for the Transport sector The activity in this sector can focus on the provision of value-added to the users through the improved capacities of analysis and dissemination of the available data. This has been a request of several MED countries and has been already taken into account in the work programme, as country-specific technical assistance missions Suggested topics for the Trade and BoP sector A special focus can be given to the dissemination and analysis of available data, in particular through the introduction of IT tools for data production and dissemination. Another important focus is the implementation, with an increased participation of the countries, of mirror exercises which increase the quality of trade statistics. 3. Orientations for the extension: cross-cutting issues In addition to thematic issues, horizontal or cross-cutting issues are still considered for the extended work programme, in the fields of training and dissemination, and especially in the preparation of the transition to the post-medstat cooperation Preparation of the strategy for the post-medstat cooperation The preparation of the strategy for the post-medstat cooperation and the transition to a new framework will be carried out during the whole MEDSTAT III project life. However, it is expected that the final semester will be mainly devoted to this activity. The additional resources should guarantee the mobilisation of a proper amount of expertise till the end of MEDSTAT III, the holding of needed working meetings for open, strategic discussions on the views for the future common work and cooperation, on the institutional framework and work programme (where to go and how to go). It should benefit of the preparation made in the sectoral task forces. The process for the preparation has been already started and planned in stages 1. At the end of 2011 it is expected that the activities to be carried out in 2012 and 2013 will be further detailed, in accordance with the agreements reached until then. 1 Please refer to the specific document on this issue prepared for the Directors Committee meeting, item 3 of the agenda. 4

5 3.2. Support to training centres and programmes The progresses made in the previous MEDSTAT programmes have to be consolidated in particular the reinforcement of technical and managerial capacities of NSSs. In particular, the efforts for improving the production process at the national level, adapting international standards, harmonizing the output for international comparability and disseminating the statistical data could be better secured in the long run with a proper training strategy and implementation and a proper documenting practice. In a context of scarce human and financial resources, as of relatively high turnover of the senior and most qualified staff, the knowledge obtained through training programmes have to be made durable. The sustainability of training efforts requires that the national structures for training statisticians are strengthened and consolidated. Consequently, in order to consolidate the capacities of the staff of the NSS of ENPI South countries, a focus will be put on specific activities aiming at the strengthening of the national training structures, of as many countries as possible. Furthermore, regional distance learning will be considered by initiating pilot implementations of some limited but exemplary courses Support to dissemination policies and technologies to increase the use of statistical data While aiming at the provision of more and better data in the priority sectors, the project shall also focus in the increase of the use of these data. As long as the quality of the available data was the core issue to solve during the previous phases of MEDSTAT, the dimension of data use assistance was taken into account with less intensity. As several sectors have reached a proper data quality, the additional means allows MEDSTAT III to address more strongly the purpose of making the existing quality data more widely used, by mainstreaming the work on users awareness of the data availability and assisting in the literacy for the data use. In consequence, the linked issues MEDSTAT III is to address are the following: - To carry on with the capacity of NSIs and in general of the NSSs to produce high quality data and to disseminate it with adequate technologies and analysis; - To develop an efficient, open and user-friendly dissemination policy in the National Statistical Systems of the ENPI South countries, including the identification of users needs which can be fulfilled by the statistics available, and the measurement of users satisfaction with this dissemination; - Contributing to the level of statistical literacy which allows the general public and the specialized users to benefit from the disseminated statistical information, being aware of the importance of using statistical data for public and private decisionmaking and informed debate. Consequently, all planned events and missions should consider the issues of: identifying the users needs which can be satisfied through the improved quality of the available statistics, strengthening and working when possible within user-producer structures, increasing the analytical skills of the producers, developing users statistical literacy, promoting best practices for dissemination and measuring users satisfaction. Technical support on dissemination technologies may be needed. 5

6 3.4. Preparation of publications In addition, to reinforce the visibility of the Euro-Mediterranean statistics, few thematic scientific publications related to the sectors covered by the program could be issued, to enrich the already existing MEDSTAT publications. Based on the MEDSTAT II experience these publications give a large and sustainable visibility of the programme. The following publications could be considered, as they have been proposed either during MEDSTAT II or during the TF of MEDSTAT III: - Energy statistics: o Regional publication of Energy Balances and Energy Efficiency Indicators o Final Energy Consumption surveys - Manual for transport sector - Migration statistics: Documentation of national systems for migration statistics - Social statistics: o Regional guidelines for conducting the dialogue between users and producers of social statistics o Regional guidelines for harmonizing social indicators - Transport statistics: The economic, technical and environmental performance of the transport systems in the Mediterranean Countries. The establishment of two working groups for the preparation of the publications on social statistics has been given a positive feedback by the TF on Social Statistics. 6