1. Organizing and Operationalizing National Statistical System The Malawi NSS experience By Mercy Kanyuka Presented at a Workshop on the Review of the RRSF Implementation Kigali Rwanda 18 – 21 October 2011

2. Presentation Outline Introduction - NSO Background to Malawi NSS Organizing the NSS Operationalisation – Coordination of decentralized official statistics – Aligning The NSS and NSO to Inter. Stat. System and Inter. Standards – Donor coordination – Revision of Statistics Act – Functional Review – Challenges

3. The Malawi National Statistical Office Govt. Dept under Finance and Dev. Planning Operates under the 1967 Statistics Act – (Currently under revision) Headed by Commissioner of Statistics Head quarters and 3 regional offices Operates the Statistics Common Service – Statisticians in line ministries are recruited, promoted, posted by Commissioner of Statistics

4. Background to Malawi NSS NSO’s activities based on Strategic Planning since 1996 First S/P was produced in 1996 for 1996 – 2000 Second produced in 2001 for 2002 – 2006 Latest S/P finalised Aug 07 covers period 2007 -2011 Currently working on the next S/P for period 2012 -2016 The 2007-2011 S/P has 6 goals one of which is to establish, promote, coordinate and manage the NSS NSS was launched in November 2006

5. ‘Organising’ the NSS NSS Steering Committee – Composition :About 15 members from line Ministries and the President of the Statistics Association of Malawi – Quarterly Meetings to review work plans and progress of work – Under this are subject-specific technical working groups NSS is being implemented in phases: – First phase working with 6 Ministries: Agriculture, Education, Health, Labour, Trade and Industry, Justice and the NSO NSS Strategic Plan was finalised in June 2008 for 2008-2012 Prioritised and costed action plan for statistics and capacity building to develop statistics

6. Operationalisation of NSS Coordination of decentralized official Statistics – Framework for coordination across Malawi Government – NSS Strategic Plan provide framework for integration into MGDS processes – Quarterly Steering Committee meetings oversee implementation of NSS Strategic Plan

7. Operationalisation of NSS (cont’d) Aligning The NSS and NSO to Inter. Stat. System and Inter. Standards – NSS working on compendium of Statistics / Indicators/ concepts / Definitions : Demographic and Social – Finalized Economic, Agric. Educ. & Health – Capacity Building Officers undergoing various courses with Malawi University In- house Training : Resource Centre for sharing knowledge within statisticians as well as others from outside

8. Operationalisation of NSS (cont’d) Donor coordination Framework for coordination between Development Partners Framework for funding – Working towards Statistics SWAP and basket funding Statistical Advocacy – Materials developed and distributed to the wider community – newsletters; flyers; booklets

9. Operationalisation of NSS (cont’d) Revision of Statistics Act – Act being revised to give Commissioner of Statistics more powers to coordinate stats. Activities of NSS Functional Review of NSO & NSS – NSO Organization structure has been reviewed to: Create more positions and better career paths Ensure NSS Coordination unit is within the NSO established divisions/sections Line Ministries have higher posts of statisticians

10. Challenges in NSS implementation Understanding NSS within government – E.g. NSS coordination unit Capacity building – Human Resource esp. in govt. department – Financial Resource constraints Donor coordination – Has been possible for specific activities not all NSS Enacting proposed Statistics Bill

11. Thank you!