1. Second meeting 16 July 2014, Bangkok
Strategic Advisory Body on Modernization of Statistical Production and Services for Asia and the Pacific (SAB-AP)
Second meeting
16 July 2014, Bangkok
Marko Javorsek
ESCAP Statistics Division

2. Structure of the presentation
Regional governance structure for the modernization of statistical production and services
Regional initiatives and activities
Expected outcomes of the meeting

3. Committee on Statistics
Second session (2010) the Committee adopts two overarching, strategic goals:
Ensuring that all countries in the region by 2020 have the capability to provide an agreed basic range of population, economic, social and environmental statistics.
Creating a more adaptive and cost-effective information management environment for national statistical offices through stronger collaboration.
Third session (2012) the Committee decides to establish:
High-level strategic body
Network of experts

4. SAB-AP Terms of Reference adopted by the Bureau in May 2013
Call for nomination sent out in May 2013
Seven nominations were received (Australia, India, Malaysia, Pakistan, Republic of Korea, Samoa, Viet Nam)
The Bureau accepted all nominations and appointed the member from Australia as the chair of the Body

5. SAB-AP (cont’d)
First meeting of the Body was held in November 2013 in Japan, where the SAB-AP:
Drafted a 2014 work programme
Proposed the establishment of a modernization working group
Welcomed the ADB/ESCAP SDMX initiative and supported the project objectives
Reminded of the need for a strong support of national statistical offices at the highest level of management

6. Key responsibilities The primary objective:
“to drive and support changes towards the modernization of statistical production and services in Asia-Pacific”
The Body shall be responsible for:
Developing a regional strategy
Mobilizing financial and human resources
Acting as a regional voice
Providing strategic directions to and overseeing the programme of work of the network of experts

7. Terms of Reference Five heads of National Statistical Offices
Balanced representation, geographically and across developed and developing national statistical systems
Include a regional member of the global HLG
Appointed for a period of two years
SAB-AB shall establish a yearly programme of work setting priority areas and related activities
Report to the Bureau of the Committee on Statistics and the Committee itself

8. past regional activities

9. Past ESCAP events on modernization
Side event to the Committee on Statistics, Second session – Modernizing statistical information systems, Bangkok 2010
Expert Group Meeting: Opportunities and advantages of enhanced collaboration on statistical information management in Asia and the Pacific, Bangkok 2011
SIAP Management Seminar 2011 – Shifting from “stove-pipe” data producer to “information service” provider
Practical advisory workshop: Supporting effective use of information and communication technology in population census operations, Moscow 2012
GSBPM & SDMX
Joint meetings on the Modernization of Statistical Information Systems (MSIS) 2013 & 2014

10. MSIS 2013 & 2014 Collaboration between UNECE, OECD, Eurostat and ESCAP
23-25 April 2013, 2 venues joined by web link:
Paris – hosted by OECD
Bangkok – hosted by ESCAP
14-16 April 2014, 2 venues joined by web link:
Dublin – hosted by CSO, Ireland
Manila – hosted by ADB
Joint sessions were held in Asia-Pacific afternoon and Europe morning time
Provided recommendations about work on modernization in Asia-Pacific

11. Outcomes of the MSIS 2013 (Bangkok)
Participants recommended that
the work of the expert community centre around key priority areas; and
interested practitioners and experts to gather in smaller working groups.
Key priority areas identified by the participants:
Strengthening national statistical systems (coordination, information flow in decentralized systems, etc.)
Generic Standard Business Process Model (GSBPM)
Statistical Data and Metadata Exchange (SDMX)
e-collection
Data dissemination
Big data

12. Schematic depiction of the HLG, SAB-AP and working groups as suggested by MSIS 2013 participants

13. Outcomes of the MSIS 2014 (Manila)
Participants recommended:
That intensified regional collaboration is needed
To organize work in smaller, focused and technical working groups on clearly identified priority areas
That working groups need to be formalized
That NSOs management needs to give the necessary attention to this area of work
That regional and international organizations were best placed to coordinate and facilitate the establishment and the work of these groups
Priority areas to be: big data, SDMX, e-collection, data dissemination and visualization

14. ADB/ESCAP SDMX Capacity Building Initiative
Direct outcome from MSIS 2013
The primary focus of the project is to promote the use of SDMX among national statistical systems in the region and build regional capacities in applying SDMX
The project is focusing on:
Mapping of DSDs for data exchange (reuse global DSDs);
Capacity building on using tools to support automated data exchange (e.g. Eurostat SDMX-RI, IMF Open Data Platform).
The pilot phase involves 4 countries: Australia, Malaysia, New Zealand, and Thailand

15. ADB/ESCAP SDMX Capacity Building Initiative (cont’d)
Focus on economic statistics indicators (ADB Key Indicators), limited to NA or BoP in the first stage (due to the recent adoption of the global DSDs)
Take into account specific needs of other international organizations (e.g. OECD, IMF, UNSD, WB, etc.)
Current status of the project
Difficulty to operationalize global DSDs and tools (SDMX-RI)
Project delayed due to staff change at ADB
Question to consider: How should the initiative be placed under the auspices of SAB-AP?

16. Modernization wiki

17. expected outcomes of the meeting

18. Outcome of the meeting
The SAB-AP at its second meeting shall agree on:
Strategy of SAB-AP
Work programme for of SAB-AP
Outline of the SAB-AP report to the Committee on Statistics
Regional priority areas for the work on modernization of statistical production and services

19. Future activities
Global Conference on Big Data for Official Statistics, October 2014, China
Should SAB-AP represent countries from Asia-Pacific at the conference?
Should SAB-AP get involved in the work of the global working group?
Meeting of the Expert Group on Statistical Data and Metadata Exchange, October 2014, Republic of Korea
How should the region be represented at the meeting?
How can SAB-AP get involved in the meeting?

20. Future activities (cont’d)
Side-event on “The use of big data for official statistics in Asia-Pacific” to the Committee on Statistics, 19 December 2014, Bangkok
Is the topic of big data for the side-event interesting?
How can SAB-AP contribute to the debate?
What should be the focus of the side-event, e.g. the dialogue with private sector?