1. Economic Statistics - Capacity Screening Progress on NSDIS
2018 PACIFIC STATISTICS STANDING COMMITTEE MEETING: November 1-2, 2018
Economic Statistics - Capacity Screening Progress on NSDIS
Chris Ryan
Statistician
ESCAP – Pacific Office

2. Overview of Presentation
Results of Capacity Screening exercise on Economic Statistics
What it is, and how it came about
What information it can provide
Very basic initial results
How it can be useful to you
Progress on ESCAP activities with National Indicator Development
Immediate support plan - VNR support
Short term plan - Future development work of EPIC
Long term plan – Promoting NSDISs across the region

3. Overview of Regional Programme for the Improvement of Economic Statistics (RPES)
The RPES was initiated by the Committee on Statistics in 2010 at its second session.
The Programme is designed to improve soundness of economic analysis and related decision making through increased availability and effective use of timely, reliable and comparable economic statistics
It’s being implemented over three phases ( ; ; )
Assess progress at the end of each phase

4. Overview of Capacity Screening Tool
Capacity Screening Tool developed by the Capacity Screening Task Force, established by the Steering Group for RPES
First introduced in 2013 at the end of Phase 1
Just completed the second phase which was undertaken in 2017

5. Questionnaire Content (2017)
RPES Effectiveness: Cover questions on perceived effectiveness of the RPES, interest in providing or receiving assistance within the Programme, and types of assistance required and received
Institutional Setting: Questions on institutional aspects including statistics legislation, planning for statistics development, coordination amongst producers of statistics, and dissemination and advocacy activities
Training: Questions on the capacity to build and maintain the skills of statisticians working in NSSs, including availability of induction programmes and other economic statistics training, and reasons for non-availability

6. Questionnaire Content (2017) - cont
Statistical Infrastructure: Questions on availability and frequency of key collections; LFS, HIES, Establishment Survey, Population Census, Economic Census, Agriculture Census as well as Statistical Business Register. Questions on metadata and data quality also included
Core Set: Questions on availability of the 31 Core Set items of Economic Statistics, including reasons for unavailability and plans to address gaps

7. Application of the Capacity Screening Tool
The Phase 2 Capacity Screening exercise was circulated to countries in the Asia-Pacific region in June 2017, with results received by 50 countries by March 2018:
American Samoa, Cook Islands, FSM, Fiji, Guam, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Niue, Northern Marianas, PNG, Samoa, Tuvalu, Vanuatu
Pre-filling based on 2013 Screening was undertaken

8. What are the core set items of economic statistics
Prices and Costs
CPI, PPI, etc
(6 Core Set Items)
Demand and Output
GDP (production), External trade – merchandise, etc
(11 Core Set Items)
Income and Wealth
BoP, External debt, etc
Money, Labour, Government and Resources
Interest rates, Government debt, etc
(8 Core Set Items)

9. How is the Pacific Tracking?

10. How is the Pacific Tracking?

11. How can these results be useful
Exercise undertaken to assist all partners/donors
Great source of material for reviewing progress of TYPSS
Data is available for all Development Partners and Donors to assist in developing future support
Happy to receive any requests for additional information on this data source to assist moving forward

12. Progress on ESCAP activities with National Indicator Development
Phase 2
Progress on ESCAP activities with National Indicator Development
Immediate support plan - VNR support
Short term plan - Future development work of EPIC
Long term plan – Promoting NSDISs across the region

13. Immediate support plan - VNR support
Workshop from 4-6 December in Nadi for the 5 PICT VNR countries
Fiji, Nauru, Palau, Tonga, Vanuatu
Focus on Data/Statistics
Information sharing on SDG implementation and indicator development
Develop workplan for addressing VNR data/statistics
Produce documentation on challenges/strategies for indicator production for inclusion in VNR report
Also providing in-country support as required

14. Short term plan - Future development work of EPIC
What Is EPIC?
It’s a tool being developed by ESCAP to assist countries develop a “National Sustainable Development Indicator Set (NSDIS)” through two key phases
Scrutinizing National/Sector Plans to identify key issues, and corresponding indicators
Build on this by consulting relevant global/regional initiatives such as SDGs and their corresponding indicator frameworks

15. Short term plan - Future development work of EPIC
Where are we at now with EPIC?
Have trialed in Samoa extensively with partial success
Full support by country on idea
Approach (excel) too tedious
Will be developing a user friendly IT application to apply EPIC to a range of different planning docs
Will trial in 2 Pacific countries in 2019

16. Long term plan – Promoting NSDISs across the region
Develop a long term strategy to take EPIC and the development of NSDISs across the pacific region
Will be seeking donor support for this phase
Will be incorporating many partners
SPC – co-lead in the work
UPS – incorporate a training component
WHO, ILO, SPREP, UNICEF, UNFPA, etc help review what countries produce

17. Any Questions