Country Director's Meeting, NYC, October 2014 Challenge and opportunity Ministry of Planning and Investment Lao Statistics Bureau

Outlines Key achievements Challenge and issues Lesson learnt Next steps Propose to international organization

Key achievements Training workshop on SDMX and compiling metadata of development indicators for LSB and line ministries staffs; Develop metadata for some key indicators and produce metadata handbook; Improve IT infrastructure (servers) to support the project-data sharing and exchange; National data reparatory and national registry are in place; Promote the use of LaoInfo and improved coordination and collaboration with line ministries; Revised MDG database with update data and metadata.

Challenges and issues Resource and capacity – Lack of number of statistical staffs at line ministries and LSB – Limited knowledge on statistical skill, metadata, database. – Shortage of ICT infrastructure – Lack of documentation on indicator, metadata, methodology – Limited of data available

Challenge and issues, conti Coordination – Project committee members by high level staff in LSB, but only technical staffs from other line ministries – Unstable of focal point at line ministries – Infrequent workshop and training for the line ministries' focal persons Data mapping – lack of work and documentation on indicators and methodology standardization – Different method between national and international (even within international) – Due to the lack of data available, so some other proxy indicator were used

Challenge and issues, conti Database management – Lack of IT specialist who particularly worked on the database management – Advance training on database management in both DevInfo 7 and SDMX still need to improve capacity at national level.

Lesson learnt Availability of series data and metadata at national level are very importance to this project and the knowledge and technical skill of the key staffs who work on statistics at line ministries on development of indicators and its metadata as well as lack of improved IT infrastructure are still remain as key challenge of the country. This project will pay an importance role to fulfill these limitation/gap to improve the national statistical system of the Lao PDR and make it feasible for everyone and easy access.

Lesson learnt. Coti To reduce data discrepancy and increase understanding of the users, all development indicators should have metadata and data structure should follow international standard such as SDMX; To effectiveness on maintaining of central data repository it requires to have an adequate IT infrastructure and the person who responsible for this task should high capacity on IT and knowledge on specific area; Specific training for IT persons who are working on this at central as well as line ministries and provinces is necessary and recommended; An appropriate tool for data storing should be applied DevInfo/LaoInfo

Next step Conduct series workshop with line ministries to develop the metadata for other national indicator and plan for sharing in UNSD website; Continues strengthening the focal point network at line ministries Strengthen the LaoInfo7 online for users friendly such as database quality, data updates regularly and localization user interface Study the feasibility on expanding new core NSEDP indicators for sharing and publishing thru national SDMX registry and UN website.

Propose to international organization Emphasize the importance of good metadata, the project should recommend and making consensus among international agency for metadata of some indicators; Continue to strengthen capacity for national project team on metadata and database management and presentation of statistics.

Thank you