Copyright 2010, The World Bank Group. All Rights Reserved. Planning and programming Planning and prioritizing Part 1 Strengthening Statistics Produced in Collaboration between World Bank Institute and the Development Data Group (DECDG)

Copyright 2010, The World Bank Group. All Rights Reserved. Purposes of planning Strategic and operational planning are essential elements of managing statistical systems and agencies Planning is needed for: Defining directions and objectives Supporting claims to resources Managing performance Providing an instrument for coordination Priority setting 2

Copyright 2010, The World Bank Group. All Rights Reserved. Planning structure National statistical systems use: Strategic multi-year plans Annual work plans Operational plans Strategic multi-year plans deal with the broad lines of envisaged statistical development over a period of up to 5 years Annual work plans describe statistical activities to be undertaken during the forthcoming year and the outputs to be produced Operational or project plans, such as ICT investment plans, financial plans, dissemination plans, survey and census plans, etc. 3

Copyright 2010, The World Bank Group. All Rights Reserved. Importance of planning Many NSOs, particularly in developing countries, are small and have unpredictable budgets, either because of political circumstances or because a large part of their resources comes from international initiatives over which the office has limited influence For such offices, an international program, e.g. on measuring poverty, may account for a large part of total activity The usefulness of having a five-year plan and an annual work plan, however, applies to all NSOs Planning is essential for all complex undertakings 4

Copyright 2010, The World Bank Group. All Rights Reserved. Strategic planning – mission statement Strategic planning starts with a mission statement The mission statement describes the role of the agency as it relates to society All employees should be able to identify their specific working relationship to this defined mission The mission must be clearly understandable to the public and should answer the following questions: Who are we as an organization and whom do we serve? What are the basic purposes for which we exist, and what basic actions do we have to accomplish? What makes our purpose unique ? 5

Copyright 2010, The World Bank Group. All Rights Reserved. Example of mission statement We serve as the leading source of quality data about the nation’s people and economy. We honor privacy, protect confidentiality, share our expertise, and conduct our work openly. We are guided on this mission by our strong and capable workforce, our readiness to innovate, and our commitment to our users (USA – Bureau of the Census) Our mission is to produce and make available official statistics relating to different areas of society, which can serve as a basis for decisions, public debate and research. These statistics are to be objective, reliable, comparable, up-to-date and easily accessible (Sweden) To facilitate planning and decision making within the government and the business community, to stimulate research and inform public debate through the provision of relevant, reliable and timely statistics and a quality statistical service in general (Tanzania) To lead and partner in statistical production systems for evidence-based decisions (South Africa) 6

Copyright 2010, The World Bank Group. All Rights Reserved. Strategic planning - goals The development of agency goals is a critical element of the strategic planning process Goals describe the future direction of the agency The goal development process focuses on clearly defined purposes Within the scope of the stated mission, goals specify where the organization wants to be in the future Goals are issue-oriented statements that reflect the realistic priorities of the agency They should be client-oriented, address the primary external and internal challenges facing the organization, and be easily understood by the public 7

Copyright 2010, The World Bank Group. All Rights Reserved. Example of goals 1.Meet the needs of policy-makers, businesses and non-profit organizations, and the public for current measures of the population and the economy 2.Support the economic and political foundations of the country by providing benchmark measures of the economy and population 3. Meet legislative mandates by implementing a census that is cost- effective, provides timely data, and coverage accuracy, with limited operational risk 4. Support innovation, promote data use, minimize respondent burden, respect individual privacy, and ensure confidentiality 5. Maintain a high quality and motivated workforce 8

Copyright 2010, The World Bank Group. All Rights Reserved. Strategic planning – objectives In contrast to goals, which are broad general statements of long- range purposes, objectives are specific, quantified, and time-based statements of accomplishments or outcomes Objectives represent the extent to which agency goals will be achieved at the end of the time period covered by the strategic plan An agency's objectives should be derived directly from its stated goals, which imply a priority for resource allocation 9

Copyright 2010, The World Bank Group. All Rights Reserved. Example of objectives (related to goal 2) Goal 2: Support the economic and political foundations of the country by producing measures of the economy and population Objective 2.1: Produce accurate, timely, and relevant benchmark measures of the economy Objective 2.2: Produce accurate, timely, and relevant population estimates Objective 2.3: Produce accurate, timely, and relevant statistics by developing new samples that reflect the current characteristics and geographic location of the population 10

Copyright 2010, The World Bank Group. All Rights Reserved. Strategic planning - strategies Strategies are courses of action that will be undertaken by the agency to accomplish its objectives Objectives indicate what the agency wants to achieve; strategies indicate how those objectives will be achieved To develop strategies, the agency determines how best to achieve the results intended by the objectives More than one strategy may be needed for accomplishing each objective In choosing strategies, the costs, benefits, and anticipated consequences of alternative courses of action must be evaluated 11

Copyright 2010, The World Bank Group. All Rights Reserved. Example of strategies (related to objective 2.1) Objective 2.1: Produce accurate, timely, and relevant benchmark measures of the economy Improve content and design of the economic census to increase the relevance and usefulness of the data. Develop complete mail lists for the economic census Develop and deploy a streamlined and standardized system to collect and process economic census data and integrate the data with data from administrative records, to achieve increased efficiencies and facilitate reporting by respondents Conduct, process, publish, and disseminate information from the economic census 12

Copyright 2010, The World Bank Group. All Rights Reserved. Strategic planning - performance Performance measures are indicators of the success in achieving a goal or objective Output measures, input measures, and efficiency measures are the most commonly used performance measures Outputs measures are indicators to count the services and goods produced by an agency Input measures relate to human, financial and other resources used to produce outputs Efficiency measures are measures to relate inputs to outputs; did we produce the same with more or less resources, compared to previous periods? 13

Copyright 2010, The World Bank Group. All Rights Reserved. Example of performance measures (related to strategies for objective 2.1) Objective 2.1: Produce accurate, timely, and relevant measures of the economy Percent of businesses reporting in the economic census Percent of economic census data disseminated to the public Cost, across entire economic census to profile each million in nominal Gross Domestic Product Change in percent of economic census data collected electronically, compared with previous economic census 14