Economic Statistics - Capacity Screening Progress on NSDIS 2018 PACIFIC STATISTICS STANDING COMMITTEE MEETING: November 1-2, 2018 Economic Statistics - Capacity Screening Progress on NSDIS Chris Ryan Statistician ESCAP – Pacific Office

Overview of Presentation Results of Capacity Screening exercise on Economic Statistics What it is, and how it came about What information it can provide Very basic initial results How it can be useful to you Progress on ESCAP activities with National Indicator Development Immediate support plan - VNR support Short term plan - Future development work of EPIC Long term plan – Promoting NSDISs across the region

Overview of Regional Programme for the Improvement of Economic Statistics (RPES) The RPES was initiated by the Committee on Statistics in 2010 at its second session. The Programme is designed to improve soundness of economic analysis and related decision making through increased availability and effective use of timely, reliable and comparable economic statistics It’s being implemented over three phases (2010-2013; 2014-2017; 2018-2020) Assess progress at the end of each phase

Overview of Capacity Screening Tool Capacity Screening Tool developed by the Capacity Screening Task Force, established by the Steering Group for RPES First introduced in 2013 at the end of Phase 1 Just completed the second phase which was undertaken in 2017

Questionnaire Content (2017) RPES Effectiveness: Cover questions on perceived effectiveness of the RPES, interest in providing or receiving assistance within the Programme, and types of assistance required and received Institutional Setting: Questions on institutional aspects including statistics legislation, planning for statistics development, coordination amongst producers of statistics, and dissemination and advocacy activities Training: Questions on the capacity to build and maintain the skills of statisticians working in NSSs, including availability of induction programmes and other economic statistics training, and reasons for non-availability

Questionnaire Content (2017) - cont Statistical Infrastructure: Questions on availability and frequency of key collections; LFS, HIES, Establishment Survey, Population Census, Economic Census, Agriculture Census as well as Statistical Business Register. Questions on metadata and data quality also included Core Set: Questions on availability of the 31 Core Set items of Economic Statistics, including reasons for unavailability and plans to address gaps

Application of the Capacity Screening Tool The Phase 2 Capacity Screening exercise was circulated to countries in the Asia-Pacific region in June 2017, with results received by 50 countries by March 2018: American Samoa, Cook Islands, FSM, Fiji, Guam, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Niue, Northern Marianas, PNG, Samoa, Tuvalu, Vanuatu Pre-filling based on 2013 Screening was undertaken

What are the core set items of economic statistics Prices and Costs CPI, PPI, etc (6 Core Set Items) Demand and Output GDP (production), External trade – merchandise, etc (11 Core Set Items) Income and Wealth BoP, External debt, etc Money, Labour, Government and Resources Interest rates, Government debt, etc (8 Core Set Items)

How is the Pacific Tracking?

How is the Pacific Tracking?

How can these results be useful Exercise undertaken to assist all partners/donors Great source of material for reviewing progress of TYPSS Data is available for all Development Partners and Donors to assist in developing future support Happy to receive any requests for additional information on this data source to assist moving forward

Progress on ESCAP activities with National Indicator Development Phase 2 Progress on ESCAP activities with National Indicator Development Immediate support plan - VNR support Short term plan - Future development work of EPIC Long term plan – Promoting NSDISs across the region

Immediate support plan - VNR support Workshop from 4-6 December in Nadi for the 5 PICT VNR countries Fiji, Nauru, Palau, Tonga, Vanuatu Focus on Data/Statistics Information sharing on SDG implementation and indicator development Develop workplan for addressing VNR data/statistics Produce documentation on challenges/strategies for indicator production for inclusion in VNR report Also providing in-country support as required

Short term plan - Future development work of EPIC What Is EPIC? It’s a tool being developed by ESCAP to assist countries develop a “National Sustainable Development Indicator Set (NSDIS)” through two key phases Scrutinizing National/Sector Plans to identify key issues, and corresponding indicators Build on this by consulting relevant global/regional initiatives such as SDGs and their corresponding indicator frameworks

Short term plan - Future development work of EPIC Where are we at now with EPIC? Have trialed in Samoa extensively with partial success Full support by country on idea Approach (excel) too tedious Will be developing a user friendly IT application to apply EPIC to a range of different planning docs Will trial in 2 Pacific countries in 2019

Long term plan – Promoting NSDISs across the region Develop a long term strategy to take EPIC and the development of NSDISs across the pacific region Will be seeking donor support for this phase Will be incorporating many partners SPC – co-lead in the work UPS – incorporate a training component WHO, ILO, SPREP, UNICEF, UNFPA, etc help review what countries produce

Any Questions