Regional workshop of Understanding data needs for inclusive development

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1 Regional workshop of Understanding data needs for inclusive development November 2017, Bangkok, Thailand Meeting Report Recommendations for revising and finalizing the Policy-Data Integration Tool 1. The overall structure of the draft tool, including principles, core concepts and questions, is valid and should be kept. 2. Further development of the tool should focus on the following: a. Revising and simplifying the language presented in the core concepts and key questions b. Providing direct link between core concepts and source principles c. Clearer explanation and adding examples of the relevance of the economic and environmental principles d. Revised guidelines on the step-by-step process on how to apply the tool 3. Develop advocacy materials to assist with future implementation of the tool at the national level, in particular spelling out the benefits of the tool to both statisticians and planners. 4. Clear guidance on identifying all relevant policy documents to assist countries with weeding out irrelevant documents. 5. Further revision and finalization of the tool and user manual should include its piloting in a champion country and consultation with RSG prior to submitting to the Committee on Statistics for endorsement in its 6th session. A. Background The Regional Steering Group (RSG) on Population and Social Statistics under the Committee on Statistics of ESCAP, in its first meeting held in Bangkok during 28 August to 1 September 2017, agreed on a work plan 1 to achieve the three goals in implementing the regional strategy to improve population and social statistics in Asia and the Pacific with three sub-groups focusing on each goal. The first of these goals is as follows: Enabling policy environment to maintain demand for population and social statistics. Supportive and well-coordinated policy environment is in place to ensure effective demand for the production and dissemination of the core set of population and social statistics to support SDG implementation. A key activity to support the achievement of this goal was to develop and pilot a generic tool to support leadership and senior management of national statistical systems in engaging with their policy counterparts in identifying and prioritizing statistical information needs, including disaggregated statistics. The aim was for the tool to be used for producer-user engagement in different policy contexts

2 Subsequent to the first RSG meeting, ESCAP initiated three pilot studies to assess feasibility of applying an existing rights-based tool for assessing policy inclusiveness (EquiFrame) in three policy areas (poverty, women empowerment, and disaster risk management) in two countries (Mongolia and Sri Lanka). This workshop was organized to bring together members of the sub-group of Goal 1 (senior statisticians) of the RSG, as well as experts from the policy community, academia and civil society to: - Review the results of pilot studies and identify opportunities and challenges in applying EquiFrame in other policy areas - Further review the draft policy-data integration tool through hands on practices and discuss issues for adapting/revising the tool to be used by NSOs to assess and prioritize needs for statistical information on sub-populations - Produce a set of recommendations for improving the tool and making it accessible to and usable by national statistical systems in the region B. Issues to be addressed The workshop consisted of three sessions: Session 1: Understanding the link between policy and data Session 2: Testing of the policy data integration tool Session 3: Recommendations and plans for moving forward The first session focussed on setting the scene and included presentations from Philippines and Samoa, including a plenary discussion which tackled key issues addressing the construction of policy documents by planners, the role of statisticians, and the engagement between the two parties. The second session focussed on presenting the use of the EquiFrame tool, as it had been tested in Mongolia and Sri Lanka, and introduced the updated version with two additional components (Economic and Environmental), Policy-Data Integration Tool, providing an opportunity for workshop participants to test the tool on their own policy documents. The third session addressed what was considered to be essential characteristics of an effective tool for understanding data needs from policy documents, and sought feedback from participants on how this work can effectively move forward. Detailed documents of the workshop, including the concept note, programme, presentations and participants, are available at the workshop page on ESCAP website 2. C. Developing and applying a generic tool for understanding data needs for inclusive development: Summary of discussions and recommendations Throughout the three-day workshop, the experts reflected on the piloting of EquiFrame in selected countries, as well as broadly country practices in identifying and prioritizing statistical information needs to support policy formulation and implementation. The workshop 2 2

3 participants emphasized that international development partners such as ESCAP have an important role to play in supporting countries in tackling the issue of social inclusion in data and policy by introducing new standards, tools and methods in data collection as well as policy monitoring and evaluation. In exchanging expert insights and critically reviewing experiences, the workshop participants also produced concrete recommendations on revising the draft tool and its finalization. Broaden the scope beyond social inclusion The workshop participants agreed that the existing tool (EquiFrame) is extremely useful, especially its structural components including the principles, core concepts and questions for identifying issues and target population groups for intervention. On the other hand, further revision of the tool and improvements should consider the following: The current draft is based on human rights principles and focuses on social inclusion. The future generic tool should address other two dimensions of sustainable development, i.e. economic and environmental. Add core concepts and adapt the language for application in broader policy areas. The current draft provides core concepts and key language that are developed for public health policy. These need to be rephrased in a more generic language and link directly to the principles. Future version should also include clear examples that help users apply the core concepts in different policy areas. It is important that information needed related to economic and environmental aspects be identified under the social policy documents if they are relevant and required for implementation and monitoring of the policy. In other words, it should be clearly communicated to the users of the tool that all three sets of core concepts have to be assessed against all policies regardless of the theme. This is because even economic and environmental core concepts can potentially be relevant to, say, social policies. Clearer explanation/definition Define the term policy more clearly to guide the reader on what exactly is meant: strategy, action plan, act, rule, legislation, or program. Clarify that when document mentions target group it refers to groups that are under policy target population. For instance, if policy section is on maternal health, target population is women and target groups are different groups of women. If policy section is about universal health, target population is all nation and target group could be any sub-population. Some of the key questions and core concepts require to be rephrased. For instance, economic units need more clarification in the questions under economic core concepts. In addition, somewhere in question the value and volume of the interaction/product need to be added. Another example is Type of product which is not clear about noneconomic policies and could be replaced by a more generic term. On the other hand, not all core concepts may be relevant to all policy documents. Some could still be important for policy as reference to enhance its inclusiveness but not for data collection purposes. In those cases, policy makers could benefit from application of the tool to ensure that all three dimensions of development are considered in the policy and all population groups and issues are covered. 3

4 Points of considerations in drafting the guidelines in applying the tool It is important that the generic tool bring simplicity and convergence into the complex world of policy making and statistical production by fostering dialogue between them. The tool is equally important for policy and for data and therefore it should be implemented by all relevant stakeholders. The tool should help to integrate statistics into the system thinking approach that is taken by policy makers in SDG implementation. System thinking involves not only tools but also behaviours of groups involved (policy and data in specific) that should be taken into account when applying the tool and a means of communication between users and producers of data. The generic tool has to be implemented by a team consisting, at the minimum, statisticians and policy experts. But it is very important that stakeholders other than government departments, such as civil society organizations and academia, being consulted in the process since many of the issues may only be understood through rigorous analysis done by these two groups. Therefore, if it is not possible to directly include them in the discussion, they have to be indirectly consulted (through consultative meetings or literature review). Alternative approaches for applying the tool need to be piloted and when appropriate recommended in the manual. For example, one alternative is to read one section of the policy document first, and then list all the issues and target groups (TGs) (making a menu) that fall INSIDE and OUTSIDE of the policy. Then distribute the issues and TGs across Core concepts. Finally, review all the core concepts and add TGs and issues that are missing from the list. The guidelines should clarify that the main policy document may contain several attached documents. Thus, when applying the tool, those who are familiar with all the documents (implementing and financing documents) may be needed to fully implement the tool and thoroughly answer key questions. The guidelines must clarify that purpose of the questions is not to be exactly answered but to help understanding core concept and identify issues and target groups. The first step in applying the tool should be understanding the core concepts and principles. Ideally a team of experts should discuss each core concept, understand it within the policy context and decide whether it is relevant. Then the actual assessment can be done only for relevant core concepts. Need for advocacy Prior to applying the tool, it has to be advocated among the users to understand the purpose, appreciate the value and complexity of the exercise and take the ownership of the final product. This will also help selecting relevant policy documents and get relevant expertise on board for actual implementation. It has to be clear in the tool that added benefit of its application is to learn how to improve the policy document to be inclusive in regards with issues and people, but the main purpose is to understand information need and create coherence between data production and policy making processes. 4

5 D. Way forward: national and regional actions National actions Samoa, as the future champion country to initiate use of the tool in Asia-Pacific, provided a detailed presentation on their plan to move forward in applying its use across all relevant policy documents. They presented that they already had endorsement from their government to use the tool on current policy documents, so their first challenge will be to identify which policy documents across Samoa would be relevant (at this stage identified as their Samoa Development Strategy and Samoa Monitoring and Evaluation Reporting Framework). It was felt that it would be worthwhile to initially cover just the one or two sectors (perhaps health and education), before moving in to a larger national workshop which covered all sectors. This more detailed workshop would invite representatives from Statistics and Planning, as well as key planning personnel from each of their key 14 sectors. It is planned to also invite a couple of neighbouring countries (tentatively Fiji and Nauru). The final output from this process would be a complete set or nationally relevant indicators, as identified from current, relevant policy documents in Samoa. Full details of the Samoa work plan can be found in Appendix 1, along with details on how this indicator list can be further developed to address the relevance of global (eg SDGs) and regional frameworks. The remaining countries in the workshop presented their ideas on how they could move forward in the coming months. The main feedback from other countries was that they would be interested in seeing the updated version of the tool (as a result of this workshop feedback) and a starting point from there would be advocacy of the tool to key statistician/planning stakeholders to achieve buy-in. Suggestions on training such as e-learning and understanding of policy documents for mid-level statisticians was also presented. Philippines will advocate the final version of the tool across the NSS plus budget planning agencies and together with NADA will propose a national inter-agency workshop to take the work forward. Pakistan needs to customize the final tool to Pakistan context prior to communicating to the policy makers. Thailand will discuss the tool with three sub-committee on SDG implementation and monitoring in Thailand and decide how and through which mechanism to apply the tool. In Sri Lanka, the SDG implementation team will discuss the tool and decide on the way forward. In addition, Sri Lanka requests additional workshop/training at the national level for policy makers on understanding of data for policy formulation and monitoring. Malaysia has initiated inclusive planning process that bring together four major stakeholders including NSO together for developing top down mechanism for national planning and also has a bottom up process to include other partners such as NGO and other sectors. This mechanism facilitates application of the final version of the policy-data integration tool for underrating data needs for implementation of the plan. Indonesia proposes that it is best if this tool is used by Data forum at both national and local level. In this context it is important to keep in mind that not all core concepts and findings of 5

6 this exercise provide input to data landscape but some will provide reference to policy makers where they wish to align their policies with development principles. Regional actions A 7-step action plan for 2018 was presented to the workshop, which contained a significant amount of revision to the existing tool, with supporting documentation and examples to illustrate the tool s use. The actions were as follows: 1. Revise and produce Beta version of the policy-data integration tool a. Add a set of examples: In particular illustrate economic and environmental aspects in a strongly social policy context b. Produce guidelines, based on the outcome of this workshop, including a step-bystep guide on how to use the tool c. Revise core concepts and key questions based on the comments received in this workshop 2. Compile a background document 3. Implement Beta version in champion country (possibly Samoa) 4. Develop an advocacy tool to be used by countries for communicating the tool across NSS 5. Develop final tool and guidelines (or user manual) 6. Consult with Regional Steering Group and revise accordingly 7. Endorse the tool and guidelines (user manual) by the CST6 E. Discussions Session 1: Understanding the link between policy and data The first session involved trigger presentations from the Philippines and Samoa, who provided background information on their key policy documents and strategies for identifying national priorities, as well as providing background information on the relations between the NSO and policy makers. During the deliberations that followed these respective presentations the following key comments were made: If data is required to support policy making, then data requirements need to be incorporated, which also requires NSOs are involved in target setting to ensure they are SMART The need for more active engagement between NSO and users, where NSOs challenge uses as to what they really want The importance of looking outside the planners and statisticians when developing policy, and include all key user groups When identifying priority issues in policy making, need to emphasize ownership, and make the process more a personal connection It s important to examine the behavioural issues associated with the 2 key groups (users and producers) what is the process for each group arriving at their respective decisions. This session also contained a presentation introducing the EquiFrame tool, which is forming the basis of the newly developed generic Policy-Data Integration Tool. The presentation 6

7 introduced the idea of using 21 core concepts of human rights, which can be applied to various health policy documents to examine how well they address the needs of 12 vulnerable groups. Deliberations that followed raised the following issues: EquiFrame is a tool for addressing what issues policies need to address and what data requirements are needed Not all issues can be captured by official statistics. For instance, qualitative studies can fill some of these gaps. Statisticians, planners and academics need to work together to capture all ground floor issues In many cases the data is there but without the access to academics Session 2: Testing of the Policy-Data Integration Tool This session started with two presentations from resource persons on their experience in applying the EquiFrame tool to areas outside the health sector, namely Poverty and Gender Equality and Disaster Management. Following these presentations, the newly developed generic tool Policy-Data Integration Tool was presented, and how it can be utilized to identify Target Groups that are specified in or are related to the core concepts that are relevant to the policy documents being reviewed. The Target Groups can in turn be used to identify the data needs including data disaggregation requirements. There were a range of core concepts under three key principles Social, Economic and Environment, which are attached in Appendix 2. Participants were then given the opportunity to test this tool on their own policy documents which covered a range of topics including Population, Food Security, Just Society and Reducing Inequality, Disaster, etc. At completion of this exercise a series of questions were asked on their experience of using the tool which covered: 1) What approach did your country adopt to test the tool? 2) What were the main challenges faced by your country in applying the tool? 3) What additional comments di countries have on the Core Concepts (CCs) in the tool? The feedback received from countries varied, with some finding it easier to use than others, although all countries indicated they were able to apply the tool to their policy document to some degree, which was encouraging for a first-time use. The degree of ease at which countries were able to apply the tool was due to a number of reason, which included the type of policy being tested, the quality of that policy document and initial complications in understanding core concepts, especially the economic and environment concepts. Specific comments made by countries in their feedback included: Not all CCs could be measured it was felt that the CCs would be relevant for assessing policy, but maybe not for assessing data requirements. It was difficult to apply the economic CCs, especially when the policy document had a social focus which was often the case It was difficult assessing policy documents which you weren t involved in developing or adopting There was lack of clarity in how to use the questions presented in the CCs were they just a guide or where they required to be answered? Better guidelines need to be developed for the CCs with clearer examples on how to apply them 7

8 More than one policy document needs to be reviewed in responding suitably to questions in the CCs - When a main policy document has several attachments, persons responsible for each relevant attachment needed to be involved in the review Applying the tool required a fair degree of expertise, and thus it can be quite difficult at first Population (or Target) groups were not always mentioned in the policy document, so it was difficult to determine specific sub-groups of interest The tool needs to be contextualized to local conditions before applying Session 3: Plans for moving forward The plan for moving forward was tackled in two stages: a) Plans presented by countries on how they planned to progress this work when they returned home b) Plans of the resource team/tool developers in taking on board the advice of country participants to further develop the tool and its corresponding documentation, for future use by countries and endorsement at the 6 th session of the Committee on Statistics ************************ 8

9 Appendix 1: Samoa s strategy for moving forward Step 1: Identifying Data Requirements from National Policy Documents Get endorsement from government to review all policy documents for data requirements - already endorsed Advocacy Workshop for all relevant stakeholders Identify national policy documents currently in use and relevant to the process (using guidelines developed as a result of this workshop) o SDS o SMERF Undertake the process for one (maybe two) sector of identifying all data requirements in policy documents as an illustration of how the tool works (perhaps health) with SBS, Planning and Health Ministry Conduct a 1 week workshop to address all remaining sectors with all relevant stakeholders using the policy-data integration tool o Include Statisticians, Planners, Sector Specialists, Budget Persons, etc o Do in a 2-Phase process: - Phase 1: Identify all data requirements clearly stated in the policy document - Phase 2: Identify all other data requirements implied by the policy document, but not clearly stated o Invite a Planner and Statistician from 2 neighbouring countries (Nauru, Fiji) next cabs off the rank in the Pacific o Crucial to identify all relevant disaggregation requirements o Question: What is the overall objective of this workshop: - List all relevant national indicators from currently adopted policy documents - Can be used as a tool down the track to improve clarity of policy documents Attach a priority score against each indicator STEP 1 PRODUCT A list of all national priority indicators as specified in national policy documents Step 2: Build on STEP 1 PRODUCT using Global/Regional Initiatives (e.g. SDGs) Identify all regional and global frameworks Samoa have signed up to, or would like to refer to in order to identify additional data requirements Samoa may wish to adopt o SDGs o Pacific Roadmap for Sustainable Development (PRSD) o SAMOA Pathway o Incheon Strategy o Sendai Framework o RAF on CRVS etc 9

10 Assess which indicators in these regional and global frameworks are relevant to Samoa Assess whether the specifications of the indicator in its raw form is applicable, or whether a proxy is more appropriate Add all relevant indicators from these frameworks to the indicator list developed from national policy documents STEP 2 (FINAL) PRODUCT National Priority Indicator Set for Samoa Characteristics of National Indicator Set All relevant indicators for Samoa are identified It indicates the background as to where the indicator came from o National policy document o SDGs o etc It can map nationally identified priorities in policy documents to global/regional frameworks It specifies any modifications made to indicators in global/regional frameworks It specifies all disaggregation requirements It identifies the most likely data source It identifies ideal frequency of production It stipulates if currently available It assigns a priority index for all Samoa s data requirements It s a living document o Needs updating when new policies developed o Needs updating when Samoa sign up to any new regional/global frameworks Benefits of this National Indicator Set Clarifies all relevant data requirements for Samoa, which in turn can dictate survey needs, and items to be collected in these surveys Guides development partners on areas of support required to statistics in Samoa Assist in meeting all of Samoa s Global and Regional Reporting Requirements Can feed in to the creation and updating of a SSDS (NSDS) 10

11 Appendix 2: Core concepts presented during the workshop Social principles Information on issues that affect life and livelihood of all target population units (e g. individuals, households, communities etc) as well as socio-economic characteristics of those units No Core Concepts Services and entitlements Equal opportunities Capability based Services Participation Coordination of Services Protection from harm Integration Family/group Resource Cultural Responsiveness Accountability Key Questions - What are the specific needs and choices of target groups or individuals that require tailored services or entitlements provided by the policy - What are the target groups (including disadvantaged groups) that need equal access to services provided by the policy? (such an entire poor population; women, groups living away from services; Persons with disabilities; Ethnic minority or Aged) - What are the rights of those groups - What are capabilities and qualifications that policy target groups and individuals need to improve their livelihood and contribute to the entire progress of the country/group? - What are ways that policy target groups can participate in the decisions that affect their lives, enhance their empowerment, or increase their access to services provided by the policy? - What is the mechanism that coordinates services to reach the Target Groups? - What are possible harms (physical and nonephysical) to Target Groups during their interaction with service providing mechanism? - What are characteristics of Target Groups that may potentially be barred from participation in services that are provided for general population? - What are structural characteristics (such as size, and other collective capacities) of sub-groups (such as individuals, household, family, community, etc) of Target groups that have impact on addressing their needs? (e g. assets held by household, characteristics of members, family/community members looking after the target groups, etc.) - What are cultural aspects (such as beliefs, values, gender, interpersonal styles, attitudes, cultural, ethnic, or linguistic) that may influence lives and livelihood of members of target group or their access to services provided by policy? - To whom, and for what, service providers are accountable? Issues & target groups Information needed 11

12 Prevention Capacity Building Access Quality Efficiency - What are the requirements (if applicable, primary, secondary and tertiary) for prevention from harms/needs/gaps addressed by the policy? - What are the capacity requirements of the service providers (teachers, health worker, etc)? - What are physical, economic, and information requirements for full access to services by all policy target groups? (eg. transportation; physical structure of the facilities; affordability and understandable information in appropriate format) - What are quality dimensions of the goods and services provided by the policy? - What are mechanisms and criteria for efficiently matching the limited resources to the needs of target groups? Economic principles Information on value and volume of goods and services created through a production process and having economic value as well as transactions and transactors involved No Core Concepts Full account of Transactions Distinct transactors Distinct sectors Rest of the world Coverage of assets and liabilities Types of products Purposes of transactions Key Questions - What are major transactions carried out between different units within the policy context? (products, distributive transaction such as compensations, financial instruments, other transactions) - What are the different characteristics/types of transactors that take part in major transactions in the policy context? - What are different sectors within which major transactions are carried out? - What are transactions that are carried out with the rest of the world? - What are assets and liabilities owned or owed by transactors? - What are different types of products (goods and services with economic value) in the policy context? - What are main purposes of tranactions carried out within the policy context? Issues & target groups Information needed 12

13 Environmental Principles Information on water, minerals, energy, timber, fish, soil, land and ecosystems, pollution and waste, production, consumption and accumulation No Core Concepts People-nature harmony Cross border impacts Cross sectoral impacts Long time frame Precaution Key Questions - What are the environmental impacts of the policy on peoples healthy lives? - Which groups are beneficiaries (e.g., types of water users, land holders, small farmers )? - What are environmental impacts of the policy implementation beyond national borders? - What are environmental impacts of the policy implementation from and on other sectors? - What are the environmental impacts of the policy on future generations (including past trends and future projections)? - Which parts of the society may be more vulnerable to environmental externalities of the policy outcomes? - What are the impacts of policy on earth s ecosystem? (including cross-sectoral, downstream and cumulative impacts such as ) Issues & target groups Information needed Sustainable production and consumption Knowledge and Innovation Compensation and liabilities Incentives, prices and costs Ecosystem approach Note: When there are threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason for postponing cost-effective measures to prevent environmental degradation - What are indications of sustainable consumption and production of the goods and/or services within the policy context? (such as per capita consumptions, waste generation/collection/ management, consumption of intermediates for production, excess productions, etc) - What are the types and uses of knowledge and innovation products in the policy context? - Who is using knowledge and innovation products? how? And to what extent? - What are the compensations for the people, groups or other entities that are affected by the environmental impacts of the policy? - What are liabilities for agents that are generating environmental impacts? - What is the economic value of environmental impacts and how is it determined? - What are incentives for agents to reduce environmental impact of their activities? - What are stocks and flows of natural resources and ecosystem renewable resources that may be affected by the policy? 13