Session 8
A REPORT ON THE PARIS21 WORKSHOP FOR EAST AFRICA AND THE GREAT HORN, 23-26 JULY 2000
Professor Ben Kiregyera
A REPORT ON THE PARIS21 WORKSHOP FOR EAST AFRICA AND THE GREAT HORN, 23-26 JULY 2000[1]
By
Ben Kiregyera
1. Introduction
PARIS21 is not a new agency on the block but rather a consortium with members from governments, donors and international organizations, professional bodies and academic institutions, etc. It depends on existing agencies, organizations and structures to promote and implement its principles which include partnerships, national ownership and leadership in the development of national statistical systems supported internationally and promotion of a culture of evidence-based policy and decision-making. In particular, the roll out of the PARIS21 process to countries is being done through sub-regional workshops and organizations. In the African region, workshops have been held for the Southern Africaan Development Community (SADC) in December 2000 and for East Africa and the Great Horn in July, 2001.
From 23 to 26 July, 2001 the Regional Institute of Statistics and Applied Economics (ISAE) (Makerere University) in collaboration with the Uganda Bureau of Statistics hosted and organized a PARIS21 Workshop for East Africa and the Great Horn under the theme: Supporting Policy With Statistics – Developing a Strategic Approach. Countries were given a chance to make an input into the theme for the workshop. The workshop which was jointly funded by NORAD, EUROSTAT and PARIS21, was attended by 106 participants from Eritrea, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Burundi, Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda and representatives of sub-regional organizations, regional organizations, international organizations and donor agencies. Country participants included statisticians, policy makers and representatives of the civil society, research and training institutions and media houses. There were also speakers from Madagascar and South Africa at the workshop. Invited participants from Djibouti, Sudan and Zambia did not turn up.
The main topics covered by the workshop included:
q Country monitoring of Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)
q The Compact for African Recovery
q Advocating for better statistics for better policies
q Poverty monitoring, strategies and outcomes
q Tools for poverty monitoring
q Tools for poverty information sector development goals in health, education and agriculture
q Other major policy demands
q Planning statistical systems.
The workshop put emphasis on participation and involvement. It was conducted through:
¨ invited paper presentations, discussions and sharing of country experiences;
¨ country group discussions centering around policy related data requirements, utilization of data to arrive at policy decisions, giving local examples and highlighting problems and solutions to information gaps. All the groups were facilitated and used set guidelines in order to make country reports comparable;
¨ parallel discussion sessions on macro-economic data requirements, agriculture and rural development and the role of NGO’s and civil society organizations in reduction of poverty and allied problems; and
¨ a donor forum centering on contributing as partners to country strategies and progress to-date, intentions and statistical needs as well as supporting PARIS21 in the sub-region.
This paper gives highlights from country reports and the donor forum, main conclusions and recommendations, and next steps. A comprehensive workshop report has been prepared and will be distributed to workshop participants and posted on UBOS, PARIS21 and World Bank web sites.
2. Highlights from Country Reports and Donor Forum
2.1 Highlights from country reports
One of the expected outputs of the workshop was for each country team to develop an outline plan of action, development of strategies and statistical development in their countries. The outlined plans were to be further developed into comprehensive plans in-country with the input of other stakeholders in the countries. Countries were also to identify areas of assistance in which PARIS21 and donors could lend support.
Country reports showed that all the countries either had on-going poverty reduction programmes(PRSPs)/country development plans or were just starting the PRSP process. It was reported that National Statistical Offices (NSOs) had been involved in the process but not yet in a strategic way. On their own, NGO’s and civil society organizations had been involved in solving problems mainly in the areas of education, health, environment and relief, sometimes working with sector ministries. To do their work, they often had to generate their own data on a small scale. It was reported that data had been used for development plans but discussions brought out clearly data requirements sector by sector. It was noted that although there were a wide variety of data sources for a PRSP, the main sources were identified as Management Information Systems (MIS) of line Ministries (especially those of Health, Education and Agriculture), Household Surveys, Population Censuses and Participatory Processes/Approaches. Use of different sources of data provide opportunities for combining and comparing information from different sources.
A number of constraints to statistical development mentioned by countries included:
· inadequate funding for statistics
· lack of coordination in data production
· broken series in data
· data not available at lower levels of administration
· inadequate data analysis
· poor dissemination
· lack of capacity to use data.
A number of suggestions and recommendations were made on how to handle these and other constraints and problems of data production and utilization in countries. These are outlined in section 3 of this paper.
Countries presented for discussion the outlines of plans of action they had developed at the workshop. The plans give themes, activities, requirements and time frames. The main features of the country plan outlines were:
i. developing or strengthening institutional framework for the PRSP process.
ii. increased funding for statistics and raising the profile of statistics in each country through advocacy programmes to cover all target groups (government, media, users, etc).
iii. reviewing, restructuring and strengthening National Statistical Systems to make them respond adequately to data needs of PRSP and other development plans.
iv. programme of censuses and surveys.
v. development of district/community/village registration systems.
vi. training programmes in such areas as data analysis (poverty analysis), data mining, techniques of participatory poverty assessment, report writing, poverty mapping, Core Welfare Indicator Questionnaire (CWIQ) survey technology and development of ICT strategy.
vii. building databanks (National and Sectoral).
viii. developing effective dissemination strategy.
ix. coordination of donors and effective donor support for the action plans.
x. support of PARIS21 in all of these programme items were sought by all the countries.
The above outlines will be shared with other stakeholders and further comprehensively developed. Outlines of plans of action for two selected countries participating in the workshop are given in the Appendix.
2.2 Donor forum
The donor forum was useful in indicating areas of support by different donors. Statements were made by representatives of the European Union (EU), British Department for International Development (DFID), the World Bank and the Japan Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The EU representative mentioned that following the agreement between EU and ACP countries, there is a fund of 20 billion Euros for ACP programmes for the next five years. This provides opportunities for statistical capacity buildings as part of national EU programmes in ACP countries. In addition, EU provides grants for budgetary support to some governments in the region as part of structural adjustment programmes. In addition, it was mentioned that EU is supporting sub-regional programmes including creation of a statistical database at East African Community (EAC), a long-standing trade statistics project at COMESA and a new statistical training project at Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) to support training in eastern Africa.
It was mentioned that DFID provides support for the PRSP preparation process and has provided significant resources to PARIS21 to support making the case for improving statistics and coordinating support. DFID is already providing support to a number of countries to strengthen elements of their statistical systems, including support for population censuses, household surveys and economic statistics. Support is also provided for ensuring the effective coordination of poverty monitoring systems and for participatory poverty assessment.
The World Bank briefed participants on recently established Trust Fund for Statistical Capacity Building (TFSCB) which is a world-wide technical assistance programme managed by the World Bank on behalf of donors to help countries improve their statistical systems. The fund can be used to assess statistical capacity needs of member countries, develop master plans that link closely to PRSP and/or other development strategies, and restructuring or modernizing statistical systems. Funding of up to US$400,00 for country-specific activities and programmes or multi-country activities can be sourced from the TFSCP.
It was mentioned that support by Japan has mainly been focused on Asian countries. However, Japan is contributing to PARIS21 and last year, it set up an IT initiative to assist countries use IT in statistical systems and their improvement. In addition, through the Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD), Japan is assisting African countries in different areas. The TICAD process needs information for monitoring indicators.
3. Workshop Conclusions, Recommendationsand Next Steps
3.1 Conclusions and Recommendations
A number of conclusions and recommendations were reached. They included the following:
1. Advocacy for statistics
It was concluded that statistical advocacy is crucial for raising the profile of statistics and mobilizing support for statistics among policy makers and donors. Many countries appreciated the need to celebrate Africa Statistics Day (18 November) each year as recommended by the Addis Ababa Plan of Action for Statistical Development in Africa in the 1990s to raise awareness about the importance of statistics. There was a strong desire to follow Uganda's example of celebrating a week rather than a day. The workshop also took note of the generic advocacy products and tools which PARIS21 is developing.
In addition to the above celebrations, the workshop recommended other ways of advocating for statistics including mobilization of national governments, media re-orientation, etc. It was also recommended that PARIS21, ECA and other donors assist countries to carry out different forms of statistical advocacy.
2. Good practices
It was concluded that “good practices” have been followed in statistical development in some countries in the sub-region such as strengthening and restructuring of the National Statistical System (NSS) as in Uganda and Tanzania; establishing Poverty Monitoring Master Plan as in Tanzania; etc. It was further concluded that there is need for sharing of experiences among the countries of the region.
It was, therefore, recommended that PARIS21 facilitates the sharing of experiences among countries in the sub-region.
3. Capacity building efforts at sub-regional level
It was concluded that there are a number of capacity building efforts and activities in the sub-region and that these needed support. Among these are regional training activities and database development.
A number of regional activities of capacity building nature are ongoing at major statistical training centres, including ISAE (Uganda) and EASTC (Tanzania). It was mentioned that these centres need support for them to be able to play their roles effectively. With support of the World Bank, EASTC was being turned into a centre of excellence in CWIQ Survey Technology to train personnel and provide technical back-up to countries in the sub-region.
In addition, it was mentioned that a regional statistical training project based at COMESA was to be started. The project is supported by EU. It was mentioned that COMESA would also participate in statistical capacity building in the sub-region by modernizing the production of foreign trade statistics, implementation of SNA93 and participating in data user needs assessments. It was also mentioned that with support from EU, a sub-regional database was being developed at the EAC.
It was recommended that PARIS21 along with other donors should actively support these regional activities, including provision of fellowship for trainers and trainees, equipment supply, curriculum development, etc. The need for using the centers to carry out short-term training in specialized areas such as data analysis, poverty monitoring, synthesis and integration of the quantitative and qualitative methods of data production and CWIQ Survey Technology. Mobilizing funds for the re-opening of the Kigali Institute was specially recommended.
4. Sustainability
It was concluded that while donor assistance is required for the development of national statistical systems, it should not be used as a substitute for commitment of national Governments.
It was recommended that statistical capacity building programmes and action plans should address the issue of sustainability so that countries can continue with statistical development even when donors’ support has ended. In particular, it was recommended that among other things, Government support for statistics (including increased funding) should be visible, training of staff should be continuous, more statisticians should be employed, attractive terms and conditions of service of statistical personnel should be worked out, etc.
5. User needs assessment
It was concluded that countries need to continuously assess user requirements especially given the fact that the number of users is ever increasing and their requirements are ever changing. In particular, the need to meet data needs of policy makers, the civil society organizations, the private sector and decentralized governance was underscored. The important role of data user-producer dialogue for this purpose was emphasized.
It was, therefore, recommended that data needs assessments should be carried out in countries where this has not been done and PARIS21 should assist to mobilize donors to help countries in carrying out the assessments.
6. Disaggregated data
It was concluded that disaggregated data to lower administrative levels (e.g. district) have become very important in view of government decentralization policy in most countries of Africa.
It was, therefore, recommended that necessary actions be taken to make decentralized data available, including development of community-based information system.
7. Core Welfare Indicator Questionnaire (CWIQ) survey technology
It was concluded that the Core Welfare Indicator Questionnaire (CWIQ) survey technology can be very useful in assessing poverty and in monitoring the poverty reduction strategies. Accordingly, many countries expressed interest in undertaking the CWIQ surveys.