1. HOW THE MDGS INCREASED DATA AVAILABILITY AND IMPROVED REPORTING COORDINATION Sara Duerto Valero, UNSD - 9 th July 2012, Bangkok

2. MDG data availability  An important achievement of the MDG framework has been to highlight the importance of reliable statistics in order to measure progress  Since 2006, at the request of the Statistical Commission, the Statistics Division monitors the availability of data in the MDG database  The yearly assessment measures indirectly country capacity to produce MDG data  Not all data produced at the national level reach the international statistical system:  Because of the inadequacy of existing reporting mechanisms  Some of the data in the database are estimates produced by the international agencies

3. MDG data availability and quality Statistical capacity building activities by international agencies and regional commissions have increased data quality and availability National data is increasingly produced following international standards Better coordination between national data producers and international agencies: improved reporting To measure MDG data availability we consider the number of countries that have data before and after 2000 (at least one data point), as of 2003, 2006 and 2011. In order to compare the current database with the one in 2003, only a subset of indicator series is considered: those that have remained unchanged over the years in terms of definitions and methods of reporting.

4. MDG data availaibilty

5. MDG data availability  The number of countries for which data are available for a large number of series has increased  In particular, the number of countries with trend data for 16-22 series increased from 0 in 2003, to 84 in 2006, and 101 in 2011.  The number of countries with trend data for only 0-5 series has fallen from 47 in 2003, to only 10 in 2011

6. MDG data availability  Improvement of overall data availability, irrespective of whether the data points are before or after 2000 is even greater.  In 2011, there were 122 countries with data for two points in time for 16-22 series; in 2003 there were 4  More and more series are country reported data. Reduction of disparities between national and international data

7. MDG data quality

8.  Has greatly improved and disparities have decreased because  UNSD, international agencies and regional commissions provide training to countries on the production of data  Workshops to reconcile national and international data and improve the coordination of MDG monitoring activities  Methodological guidelines published (Handbook)  Continuous consultation with experts at the national and international level (Hotlines)  Increased use of SDMX, publicly available DSD and technical assistance upon request (workshops, Country Data)

9. Country data  Project carried out by UNSD in a set of 9 pilot countries  Focuses on MDG data dissemination using SDMX  Results in the pilot countries  Improved coordination in NSS  Collated development data in 1 database  Explained differences between intl. & nat. data  Make access to national data easier  Reduce data request burden  Improved metadata  Initially MDG Labs: http://unstats.un.org/unsd/mdglabs  Currently Country Data: http://data.un.org/countryData

10. MDGs data quality and availability: Next steps Series of workshops to explain data discrepancies Workshops on SDMX for MDG data Methodological guidelines and on-line support Country Data IAEG meetings to improve coordination