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

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

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

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 Currently working on the next S/P for period The S/P has 6 goals one of which is to establish, promote, coordinate and manage the NSS NSS was launched in November 2006

‘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 Prioritised and costed action plan for statistics and capacity building to develop statistics

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you!