Advancing statistics for development

Marko JavorsekESCAP Statistics Division

Strategic Advisory Body on Modernization of Statistical Production and Services for Asia and

the Pacific (SAB-AP)

Second meeting

16 July 2014, Bangkok

Structure of the presentation

• Regional governance structure for the modernization of statistical production and services

• Regional initiatives and activities• Expected outcomes of the meeting

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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 itself7

past regional activities

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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 9

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

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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

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

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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

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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

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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?

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Modernization wiki

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expected outcomes of the meeting

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Outcome of the meeting

The SAB-AP at its second meeting shall agree on:• Strategy of SAB-AP• Work programme for 2014-16 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

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Future activities

• Global Conference on Big Data for Official Statistics, 28-31 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, 27-30 October 2014, Republic of Korea– How should the region be represented at the meeting?– How can SAB-AP get involved in the meeting?

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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?

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