1. Ce projet est financé par l’Union européenne PAGE 1 Regional Workshop on Sampling for Census of Agriculture 2010 and Agricultural Surveys 16 - 20 October 2011, Jordan, Amman Challenges In Developing a National Strategy to Improve Agricultural and Rural Statistics Dr. Hassan Serghini, Key Expert - Agriculture

2. Ce projet est financé par l’Union européenne PAGE 2 CONTENTS: 1. Introduction 2. Challenges a. Global Challenges for Building a National strategy b. Challenges of Data Needs’ Definition c. Agricultural statistical capacities d. Institutional Challenges e. Methodological Challenges f. Challenges in Building a Broad Support g. Issues and Difficulties 3. Opportunities 4. Concluding remarks

3. Ce projet est financé par l’Union européenne PAGE 3  Introduction  Agricultural and rural development policy makers are facing many Challenges among them:  Food security;  Climate Change and global warming;  Resource degradation (water, forests, rangelands, biodiversity and land);  Poverty alleviation and Millennium Development Goals;  Markets volatility: links between financial, stock and commodity markets. Necessity of deep and frequent analysis at both the international and national levels

4. Ce projet est financé par l’Union européenne PAGE 4  Introduction  Good statistics provide a basis for good decision- making, for good identification of the best courses of actions in addressing these complex issues and measure progress, monitor the outcome and evaluate impacts;  This process is statistics intensive which are costly. But what is the cost of not producing good agricultural Statistics?  Investment in agricultural statistics will pay for itself many times by improving the efficiency of resource allocation.

5. Ce projet est financé par l’Union européenne PAGE 5  Introduction  Purpose: provide a vision for national agricultural statistical systems to produce statistical data needed to make policy decision and assess their impacts;  Elaborating and implementing a national strategy for developing agricultural statistics constitute big challenges;  MEDSTAT III provides support for elaborating this strategy for MPCs.

6. Ce projet est financé par l’Union européenne PAGE 6  Global Challenges for Building a National Strategy  A strategy is not an addition of number of projects; it is a comprehensive program including statistical operations, mobilization of adequate human and financial resources, coordination issues, alignment with agricultural policies etc;  It should be realistic and sustainable with identified priorities (not too ambitious): change takes time;

7. Ce projet est financé par l’Union européenne PAGE 7  Global Challenges for building a national strategy  Implementing the strategy is another challenge: realistic implementation plan should be a part of the national strategy for the development of statistics;  Timetabled, but also flexible enough to cope with changes;  Implementation plan with resource requirement: recurrent and capital expenditure, human resources, technical statistical issues;  Monitoring, and evaluation system that measures progress and strengthens accountability.

8. Ce projet est financé par l’Union européenne PAGE 8  Challenges of Data Needs’ Definition  Define the main users: National, Regional and local government and others;  Define broad needs of users by analyzing policies’ targets, expected results, monitoring and assessing impacts of policy options; Indicators Data requirement Data produced currently Gap to be filled

9. Ce projet est financé par l’Union européenne PAGE 9  Challenges of Data Needs’ Definition  Resources are limited: need for defining Priority data:  establishment of a minimum set of core data to meet current and emerging demands.  Data requirements exceed most countries possibilities.

10. Ce projet est financé par l’Union européenne PAGE 10  Challenges of Data Needs’ Definition  Large Data Needs : Forecasts, past and current levels  Resource inventories and land cover;  Crop, livestock and fishery: production and forecasts;  Trade;  Land and water uses;  Prices;  Stock levels;  Technologies used;  Production costs;  Agricultural balance sheet….  These data are not independent from each other

11. Ce projet est financé par l’Union européenne PAGE 11  Agricultural statistical capacities  In comparison with these needs  Decline in agricultural statistics capacity and in resources allocated to agricultural statistics;  Limited coverage of agricultural statistics to crop and livestock productions;  Challenges in halting, and reversing, the decline in capacity in developing countries and the strengthening of capacity-building for agricultural statistics.  Defining an optimal path for implementing a national strategy.

12. Ce projet est financé par l’Union européenne PAGE 12  Institutional Challenges  In general lack of integration of agricultural statistics in the NSS and inclusion in National Strategies for Development of Statistics;  Coordination of all producers of statistics related to the sector especially national statistical institutes and ministries of agriculture ;  It reduces duplication of efforts to produce statistics, and provides a blueprint for the inclusion of agriculture into national strategies for the development of statistics;  Strengthen the connections between producers and users of agricultural Statistics;

13. Ce projet est financé par l’Union européenne PAGE 13  Institutional Challenges  Integration will be achieved through statistical infrastructure and a survey framework: a. Development of a master sample frame for all surveys of farms, farm households, rural non farm households and land uses; b. Implementation of an integrated survey framework (sample, survey and questionnaire designs provide the capability to link data across time and cross surveys; and c. Development of a data management system,  Coordination may be accomplished through the formation of national statistics councils;

14. Ce projet est financé par l’Union européenne PAGE 14  Methodological Challenges  Use of scientifically-based statistical methodologies for estimates and calculations and constant adaptation of methodologies to technical innovations;  Harmonization of concepts and definitions through all producers and users in particular with national account people;  A new conceptual framework with in particular, a linkage between agricultural holdings, households, and the land they occupy and use;  Progressive improvement of quality to bring agricultural statistics to the level of the best international practices and standards;  Documentation on methodologies and quality evaluation.

15. Ce projet est financé par l’Union européenne PAGE 15  Building a broad support  A national strategy should be developed in an inclusive and consultative way and a broad consultation mechanisms that involve all stakeholders:  Ministries (agriculture, natural resources, water, environment, industry, interior, finance, planning and economics);  International donors;  NGOs including farmers organizations;  Media;  Be demand-driven : Consultations with main users: (administrations, banks, traders’ associations, researchers…);  Integrated into the agricultural and rural development and natural resource conservation.

16. Ce projet est financé par l’Union européenne PAGE 16  Issues and Difficulties  Actual vs. potential users?  Defining key users and selecting a sample among them for evaluating data needs and priorities?  In theory demands for goods and services are linked to prices. In general agricultural statistics are free. Demand may be exaggerated. Criteria for developing priority?  Can users formulate their current and future needs?

17. Ce projet est financé par l’Union européenne PAGE 17  Issues and Difficulties  Are users interested in statistics outside the time they need them? Did users expressed their needs to statistical producers?  Links between data demand and data uses?  What are the current uses?  What is the regularity of needs?  Is there a tradition for using data for evaluating policy options and impacts?

18. Ce projet est financé par l’Union européenne PAGE 18  Issues and Difficulties  Evaluation of the capabilities of agricultural statistical producers (level of training of human resources, data quality, sampling frame quality?  Translate data needs to surveys’ program  Mobilization of resources needed for the implementation of the strategy. > Optimal path for implementing the strategy?

19. Ce projet est financé par l’Union européenne PAGE 19  Opportunities  Large interest for agricultural and rural development in developing countries and among international community;  Countries and international organizations are committed to the scope and content of the development of national strategies for the improvement of agricultural statistics;  Governments are more and more accountable before their populations: the evaluation of their actions needs data.

20. Ce projet est financé par l’Union européenne PAGE 20  Concluding remarks  Resources mobilization is an important issue, in particular human resources;  A strategy is a good framework for looking for resources (in particular human) from government agencies and from international donors;  An active communication policy that increases the visibility of the strategy will help finding support for the implementation;

21. Ce projet est financé par l’Union européenne PAGE 21  Concluding remarks  The big challenge is to improve countries’ statistical capacity, for properly implementing the strategy.  Address many of the unresolved methodological problems associated with agricultural surveys and, take advantage of technical developments.  The Global Strategy is a long-term effort that will be implemented in stages, according to the level of development of the statistical system of each country.

22. Ce projet est financé par l’Union européenne PAGE 22 Thank you شكرا Merci