1. Statistical capacity building in the ENP South countries
MGCS 2018
Luxembourg, March 2018
M. Schivazappa
Point 2.3 of the Agenda

2. Content EU MED relationship Forum/PNC Medstat IV programme update
Eurostat led activities
Dissemination
Training
Quality

3. 1. EU MED relationship The Forum of Euro-Mediterranean Statisticians
steers statistical cooperation between the EU and the ENP-South countries
Members of the Forum are the Directors of the NSIs of the 9 ENP-South countries, European Commission (Eurostat and DG NEAR); EFTA Statistical Office and EU Member States NSIs are invited
Next meeting: June 2018, Rome will review MEDSTAT IV program progress, discuss cooperation beyond end of MEDSTAT IV, mini- seminar on "complementary data sources"
Principal national coordinators (PNC) meeting ( , Lisbon):
ensures coordination and follow-up of the program activities & prepares Forum agenda
Working Groups
on statistical & horizontal topics (quality, trade, migration etc)
All the above are chaired by the European Commission
In addition the Forum and many of the Working Groups are co-chaired by an ENP-South country

4. 2. MEDSTAT IV
Medstat IV is a 40 months programme with the objective to promote evidence-based decision-making and foster democratic development by improving the availability, visibility and accessibility of robust statistical data in the ENP-South countries.
Six statistical sectors:
Business Registers and Statistics,
External Trade and Balance of Payment statistics,
Transport statistics,
Energy statistics,
Labour Market statistics,
Migration statistics
Business register: now only PS, previously jointly with TN
Xtrade: Morocco – Office des Changes
Transport: Palestine
Energy: Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt
Labour market: Tunisia
Migration: Lebanon
Quality: Estat
Training:
Visibility:
Gender: Jordan
Horizontal topics: training, visibility, gender and quality

5. State of play after two years
1Q/2018 TA - 1 5
Study visits 4
Working groups 6 2
Workshops 7
Training 3
Others 8
Thanks to the MS that made it possible by hosting workshops or study visit in 2017:
France
Xtrade: de France
Gender: TA to Morocco
study visit to Ministry of Transport
Denmark
Gender: TA to Egypt
energy: TA on Energy
Italy:
Training course on GIS
Finland:
XTRADE: TA to Jordan on Tables of use and supply
South South cooperation: Xtrade Morocco TA mission to Libya held in Tunisia, study visit to Tunisia for SBR
Working groups programmes implementation in line with original programme
Key Experts working days used so far: out of 1868 (60.1%)
Short Experts working days used: out of 815 (56.5%)

6. Looking ahead for the regional programme
- MEDSTAT IV due to end in April 2019
- External Evaluation of MEDSTAT IV planned for summer 2018
- Review of progress and follow up to MEDSTAT IV will be discussed at the Forum on June 2018
- Focus moves to assessing results
- The points above to feed into the planning for a follow up

7. 3 a. Eurostat led activities: Data collection and publications
The 2017 data collection questionnaires were revised.
The Eurobase structure for the ENP-South countries is currently under revision for better harmonisation with the MS database.
Publication "Basic figures for the ENP-South countries 2018"
In the pipeline:
Energy and transport
International trade
Link to ENP-South web page and Statistics Explained articles

8. 3 b. Training programme for ENP-South countries 2018-19
New contractor: SOGETI Luxembourg S.A.
1. Small area estimation: Rome, June 2018 (4 days)
2. SDMX full course: October 2018 (5 days)
3. Introduction to big data and its tools: February (2.5 days)
4. Advanced course on quality reporting: June 2019 (2 days)
5. Statistical disclosure control: October 2019 (3.5 days)
These are courses based on the ESTP, and adapted to the specificities of the region
24 months, over EUR contract

9. 3 c. Quality Working Group
A regional CoP was developed based on the European Statistics CoP: finalised, printed, also available online
Development of the corresponding QAF and SAQs for Peer Reviews
Countries are now working on a user-producer manual
Jordan Peer Review done in February 2017 according to the regional CoP: 23 recommendations, available online
Palestine* has recently requested a second peer review
A dedicated ENP South countries session will be organised at the Quality Conference taking place in Krakow, June 2018
The next meeting of the Quality Working Group will take place in November, 2018
*This designation shall not be construed as recognition of a State of Palestine and is without prejudice to the
individual positions of the Member States on this issue
Concerning the ENP-South countries, PRs have been carried out in Palestine and Jordan, and an AGA in Tunisia. In addition, sector reviews (SR) for Labour Force Statistics have been undertaken in four of the countries
4. Advanced course on quality reporting: June 2019 (2 days)