Global Strategy IMPROVING AGRICULTURAL AND RURAL STATISTICS IN ASIA PACIFIC Scope of Coordination of Agricultural and Rural Statistics within the National Statistical System Allan Nicholls Regional Coordinator of the Global Strategy in the Asia-Pacific Region Workshop on SPARS, Bangladesh, 15 November 2015
Outline Defining scope of ARS Why widened scope? Domain of coordination in ARS Agencies to coordinate Integration/ Coordination in NSS How to coordinate to maximize ARS?
Defining Scope of ARS Classical ISIC based approach: Agriculture = Crop + Livestock Wider scope is needed for: Livelihood Security and Environmental sustainability Global Strategy ARS = Crops + Livestock + Fish and Aquaculture + Land and Water resources + Forest and Environment+ Rural activities Global Strategy to Improve Agricultural and Rural Statistics Asia Pacific 3
Why widened scope? Single economic unit (holding/household) is taking decisions in all these sub-sectors for their livelihoods which impact the environment as well Means of production and the manpower engaged in these sub-sectors are common Huge under-reporting of activities in small scale capture fishery, forest products collection and rural services and other economic activities of agricultural household Dis-joint data collections efforts reduce the scope of analysis and increase the cost of data collection
Domains of Coordination in ARS Agricultural households and Agricultural population: Farm demography Structural data from agricultural censuses Agricultural and rural infrastructure (input supply, processing and marketing) Current production of crop and livestock products Forecasts, Outlooks, Prospects and Assessments Yield gap studies: Agricultural Research System Commodity oriented detailed information (tea, coffee, cotton..) Land and Water resources Farm Labour (from AC and LFS) Farm Inputs: Fertilizer, seed, feed, Machinery, International Trade Information Domestic Market information; arrival and prices Project impact assessments: adoption rate and impact Fishery and aquaculture (fish, pearls, plants) Forest products collection (non-wood) Consumption-Expenditure surveys, DHS, LSMS Nutrient Composition Tables Integrating Frameworks: SUA/FBS, PoU Indicator, SNA, SEA-Agri, About one-third of indicators identified for SDG monitoring are Agriculture related.
Agencies to coordinate: Stakeholders BBS: Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics MoA: Ministry of Agriculture and their extension services MoFL : Ministry of Fisheries and Livestock MoEF: Ministry of Environment and Forests MoWR: Ministry of Water resources MoL: Ministry of Land MoLGRDC: Ministry of Local Government, Rural Development and Cooperative FPMU: Food Planning and Monitoring Unit of MoF SPARRSO: Bangladesh Space Research and Remote Sensing Organization Ministry of Commerce Ministry of Food Commodity Boards Marketing bodies All these agencies have some data gathering to meet their own needs No single agency can meet all the data demanded for management of sub-sectors Some data collection needs expert knowledge and/or specialized technologies
Integration: Main Pillar of the Global Strategy Integration: Economic-Social-Environmental dimension of human activity to understand the interactions of data (pooling of different surveys): Statistical units may be different Operational difficulties in ex post efforts Integrated data base: different possible designs depending upon the lowest denominator of integration Integrated planning of surveys: cost-effective but difficult due to multiplicity of agencies (up to eight in Bangladesh) Not every data collection effort can be integrated in the system of surveys Administrative data (extension reports and trade data) Vs. unit level data on farms Remotely sensed spatial data
What do we mean by Coordination in the NSS? Co-ordination is the unification, integration, synchronization of the efforts of group members so as to provide unity of action in the pursuit of common goals. It is a hidden force which binds all the other functions in a system Coordination is required at all levels Top level: to take decisions in national interest Middle level: Resolving technical difficulties Lower level: integrate efforts and activities to achieve national goal Coordination is effective when there exist institutions/ forum to discuss and decide, as well as well defined authorities for different types of decisions and interventions.
How Coordinate to maximize ARS? Plan: with national perspective not with individual department s view Join hands: on the basis of comparative advantages Look for complementarities Organize: share resources (human, financial, expertise) Share credit and collective responsibility.
Global Strategy IMPROVING AGRICULTURAL AND RURAL STATISTICS IN ASIA PACIFIC Thank you Contact us Email: allan.nicholls@fao.org FAO website: www.fao.org Global Strategy website: www.gsars.org 10