Statistics in development cooperation - EU support to partner countries

This article is part of a set of background articles providing an outline of knowledge of international statistical cooperation between the European Union (EU) and developing countries, for non-statisticians needing to deal with statistics in development programmes and projects. The outline serves as an entry point and introduction to the much more detailed Eurostat publication 'Guide to statistics in European Commission development cooperation', downloadable in PDF format in English, French and Spanish (further down referred to as 'the Guide').

High-quality statistics are an infrastructure element of democratic societies all over the world. Good statistics are a pre-requisite for governments in delivering efficient administration, good management, and evidence-based policy making, and for international organisations and other donors to assess aid efficiency, to measure progress and to evaluate results. Supporting the development of statistics and of the Institutions producing it is thus an instrumental component of development cooperation.

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The EU: a key supporter of statistics in partner countries or region

The EU is a leading supporter of statistics in partner countries. This commitment to statistics may be found in various cooperation strategy papers such as:

European Consensus for Development (2006): “15. Progress indicators and regular evaluation of assistance are of key importance to better focus EU assistance.”

Agenda for Change (2011): “Section 5: In line with the Operational Framework on Aid Effectiveness, the EU will work with partner countries and other donors on comprehensive approaches to domestic and mutual accountability and transparency, including through the building of statistical capacity”.

The commitment is also reflected in regional cooperation strategies:

Africa: The Joint Africa Europe Strategy Action Plan 2011-2013: priority 7, page 30 and the Joint Africa Europe Strategy Action Plan 2014-2017: section 44, page 10

The EU and its Member States are major contributors for statistics as it can be viewed in the latest PARIS 21 Partner Report on Support to Statistics (PRESS).

Through Eurostat, the EU is also involved in major developments and harmonisation efforts in methodologies and practices for statistics that are developed by the international community of statisticians as well as by regional organisations.

What may be the main deficiencies of National statistical systems (NSS) that need to be addressed?

Deficiencies of the NSS may appear at different levels of the statistical process:

The institutional and legal framework for statistics: the statistical law may be obsolete, the strategic plan for statistical development inexistent or old, the coordination among the actors unsufficient, not systematic or badly organized,

Data sources: they may be inexistent in some areas, too old to be relevant or simply unreliable; for some indicators, there could be several sources leading to diverging estimates,

Methodologies: international standards and norms could be ignored or badly applied in some areas, or not followed by every member of the NSS,

Resources: the human and financial resources allocated to statistics, the NSI or any other data producer may not be adequate; infrastructures and equipment may be old and either not functioning properly or not fit for purpose,

Statistical outputs: their relevance vis à vis user needs may be weak and their access may be difficult and costly.

As a result of all the above, statistics may be unavailable or of poor quality, thus making it impossible to construct and use the indicators needed to feed policy design, monitoring and evaluation as well as to prepare, monitor and evaluate specific programmes. Correcting widespread deficiencies in published statistics requires an understanding of their causes, direct and indirect.

There are different ways for assessing deficiencies of statistical systems. The main ones are described in section C.5.2.3 Assessment methodologies of the Guide and in a specific Statistics explained article “National statistical systems”

What would be the trigger for considering a statistical project?

There could be a specific reference to the development of statistics or the strengthening of statistical capacities in the Indicative Programme that is negotiated with a partner country or with a regional organisation. In this particular case, both partners agree and are committed to include statistics as part of the overall national/regional cooperation activities,

There could be a specific ad-hoc request expressed by a country or an organisation for designing a support project to statistics or a statistical component in a wider sector project/programme. In this particular case, the partner country will invite the EU to complement or modify the existing programme of interventions with an additional support to statistics,

There could be an information gap, identified through an assessment/diagnostic of the statistical system, which may have consequences on the EUD or EU partnership goals achievements. The EUD/EU will initiate a discussion with its partner in order to advocate for a specific support to statistics.

What could be the scope of a statistical project?

Supporting a large statistical operation

The largest scale statistics operations are population censuses (Part D of the Guide). Examples of European Commission support to population censuses are: Nigeria 2005 Census Support Intiative, Support to the 2007 Mozambique Population and Housing Census ; Burundi Support to good governance: Contribution agreement with UNFPA for the 2008 census. Other large scale statistical operations include implementing surveys (household surveys, business surveys, price surveys, informal sector surveys …) and building registers (business register in particular).

Supporting a long term statistical capacity building programme: a strategic approach

A country’s statistical capacity can be defined as the ability of statistical producers to fulfil their mission of collection, production and dissemination of reliable and up-to-date statistics that meet user needs. Statistical capacity building is the process whereby national statistical institutes and other producers of official statistics are supported to:

(i) Reform the legal framework, (ii) Improve dialogue with the political level, within the NSS and with users of statistics outside government, especially the general public, (iii) Adapt the organisational structure of an NSI or other statistics producer to streamline production of data, (iv) Train and educate staff so that technical knowledge is sufficient for their tasks and, (v) Ensure that materials, buildings and equipment are adequate.

Strengthening a sector information system that produces regular statistics necessary for the monitoring of sector policies: case of the health sector

Sector statistics interventions aim to ensure that statistical information is available for preparing, monitoring and evaluating sector policies. Sector statistics interventions are often mounted as relatively small parts of sector-wide programmes. Statistics-related interventions have mainly been embedded in agriculture and education programmes. Other sectors where statistics components can be found include health, external trade and fisheries.

Statistical interventions may also be developed at regional level (Guide section C.7.4.5.).

A check list for preparing a statistical project/programme

The statistics action is aimed at supporting a policy that is itself compatible with national and/or regional partner country and region development strategy – (Guide section B.1.5) and it is therefore mentioned in the Strategy Paper and Indicative Programme or equivalent document (Guide section B.1.2). Statistics actions, including their scope, should be normally compatible with national statistics strategies (NSDS) (Guide section C.6.1). National / regional ownership of the statistics action should be clearly demonstrated.

Is there a national strategic plan for the development of statistics (NSDS or other strategic document – overall coherence) and what is the relation between the demand for support and this strategic document? The most common methodology for developing a strategy is the National Strategies for the Development of Statistics (Guide section C.6.1), technically supported by the PARIS21 consortium. The particular strength of this methodology is its recognition that the strategy is a policy document whose value decision-makers may be unaware of.

Who are the partners involved at the country level? Ownership is a key for success and sustainability of statistical projects. It is thus crucial to identify the adequate partners within the NSS to implement the planned interventions and to follow-up on the improvement they bring into the statistical process. In some cases, there may be more than one partner to involve in the design and/or implementation of the statistical project and coordination among them may become a central issue.

Who are the other donors interested/already involved? Donors often specialise in a limited number of technical fields, provide financial support across wider areas and leave some subjects altogether to other development partners. To avoid both duplication and the involvement of development partners in statistics actions outside their areas of expertise, co-ordination with the development community at large is essential. The Paris Declaration on Aid and Effectiveness as well as the EU Agenda for change commit the development partners to coordination.

Users’ perspective. Statistics find their legitimacy in the use that is made of them. It is therefore crucial to produce data that are relevant to user needs and to put an emphasis on accessibility, analysis and dissemination.

Some lessons from past experience

The 2007 Evaluation of the EU support to statistics examined issues related to the demand and use of quality statistics to prepare decisions and to monitor the effects of their implementation, including the interpretation of statistical data. The key findings were:

The issue of raising the demand for statistics and their understanding by decision-makers is mentioned in many projects but little firm action was being planned.
The number of seminars and workshops addressed to users was very limited.
Provision for promoting statistics was included in most projects but was generally not sustainable beyond project termination.
No projects had been undertaken on producer-user dialogue or on advocacy.
Projects in preparation had begun to include the advocacy dimension.

In 2009, the UK Department for International Development (DFID) carried out a Thematic study of support to statistical capacity building. Among the conclusions, the study highlighted that respecting the principles of the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness and giving more attention to the use and the analysis of the data may help improving the support to statistical capacity building.

How much does that cost?

Statistical projects: Population census in Mauritania (EUR 1.3 million in 2012-2013), Poverty statistics in Guinea (EUR 6.9 million in 2011-2016), Support to the NSS in Angola (EUR 2.9 million in 2012-2016), Support to the NSS in Rwanda (EUR 8.3 million in 2011-2015)

Statistics as a component of budget support: Benin (EUR 2.5 million in 2009-2013), Burkina Faso (EUR 6.9 million in 2013-2017) and Congo (EUR 2.7 million in 2010-2014)

Statistics as part of sector wide approaches: Education project in Angola (EUR 2.5 million in 2012-2016), Migration in Nigeria (EUR 2.3 million in 2011-2015), Agriculture in South Sudan (EUR 9.2 million in 2013-2016) and MDG in Zambia (EUR 2.7 million in 2010-2015)