Statistical Capacity Building Activities for OIC Member Countries by Sıdıka Başçı (Ph.D) SESRTCIC Experts Group Meeting on Statistical Capacity Building IDB, Jeddah April 29, 2007

Tasks of National Statistical Organizations Collecting statistical data Processing and analysing these data Disseminating the final output

NSOs Necessitate Highly Qualified Staff of Statisticians To secure and keep maintaining such a staff, the NSOs should: give special attention to their human resource development needs analyse their needs and capacities in order to determine their programmes of capacity building.

Statistical Capacity Building Programmes of International Organizations PARtnership In Statistics for Development in the 21 st Century - Paris21 World Bank Trust Fund for Statistical Capacity Building International Monetary Fund Different Departments of United Nations

Outline Training initiatives and activities of SESRTCIC A brief information on the Centre’s database system and the process of collecting statistical data from the OIC member countries A framework for statistical capacity building for the OIC member countries.

A Survey on the Needs and Capacities of NSOs General Statistics National Accounts Balance of Payments Statistics International Trade Statistics Monetary and Financial Statistics Government Finance Statistics Real Sector Statistics Price Statistics Agriculture Statistics Education and Training Statistics Industry and Services Statistics Labor Statistics Environmental Statistics Health Statistics Science, Technology and Patent Statistics Population and Demography Web-based Data Compilation Techniques Statistical Data Analysis Census/Surveys and Sampling Techniques

Outcome of the Survey 20 countries out of 57 member countries of OIC responded to the questionnaire. The response rate for this survey is 35 %. The most urgent 7 subjects are determined as follows: General Statistics National Accounts Labor Statistics Population and Demography Web-based Data Compilation Techniques Statistical Data Analysis Census/Surveys and Sampling Techniques Needs and capacities are matched by SESRTCIC.

Training Programme of SESRTCIC

E-learning Course E-learning course is a World Bank project where staff who are able to develop and manage statistical capacity building programmes and projects and who can provide guidance and support to the managers of statistical services are educated. SESRTCIC applied for this e-learning course in order to equip its staff with the methodologies and the techniques of how to build new projects for developing the capacities of the NSOs of the OIC member countries.

BAsic Social and Economic INDicators (BASEIND) BASEIND currently contains data on 186 socio-economic variables under 15 different categories for the 57 OIC member countries dating back to The categories that are defined under BASEIND are: Agriculture (27 indicators), National Accounts (27 indicators), Education (15 indicators), Demography (14 indicators), Exports (12 indicators), Imports (12 indicators), Transportation and Communication (12 indicators), International Finance (11 indicators), Money and Prices (10 indicators), Industry and Manufacturing (9 indicators), Energy and Mining (8 indicators), Health (8 indicators), Labour Force (8 indicators), Public Finance (8 indicators), Tourism (5 indicators)

Category-Wise Coverage of SESRTCIC’s Database

A Framework for Statistical Capacity Building Training activities will continue. The Centre is planning to make a new survey after September 2007, with the hope of a participation higher than 35%. Centre will try to create coordination with other international organizations regarding training programmes. A coordination with IDB can also be possible. Depending on the outcomes of the e-learning programme of the World Bank new statistical capacity building techniques will be promoted.

A Framework for Statistical Capacity Building (Continue) Indicators of Millenium Development Goals, indicators related to environment, indicators related to science and technology will be added to the database of SESRTCIC. Methods of data collection will be improved through an ongoing project of developing a computer programme. This project is carried out in cooperation with the NSO of Turkey. This programme will enable the data transfer of each OIC member country to SESRTCIC. The programme will be introduced to the OIC member countries, the first time, during the OECD World Forum which will be at the end of June in Istanbul.

A Final Word OIC gave the task of statistical data collection to SESRTCIC. The quality and the extent of the database can be improved if coordination with IDB and also with other international organizations is provided. The number of SESRTCIC website visitors is at a considerable level (1000 people per day). It is highly desired that the data about Islamic Countries could be disseminated to the world through this website. A proper and reliable data provision system may also increase the number of researches on the member countries of OIC.

Thank you. Thank you.