Workshop onMillennium Development Goals Monitoring

Geneva, 8-11November 2010

Opening Statement byMr. Paul Cheung

Director,

United Nations Statistics Division

It is a pleasure to welcome you to this meeting to foster the development of data and tools for MDG monitoring.

Since the first annual report on MDGs progress was submitted to the General Assemblyin 2002, shortcomings in the available data have been apreoccupation of the international statistical community. The StatisticalCommission, in March 2005, expressed concerns regarding the ability of countries to produce the necessary dataand reviewed and initiated a discussion on issues related to discrepancies and serious inconsistencies between national and international sources.

Since 2005, a lot has been done. In 2006, the UN Statistical Commission recommended to ECOSOC a resolution on statistical capacity building. The resolution, adopted by ECOSOC in July 2006, affirms that “that without a coordinated effort to enhance and sustainstatistical capability in many developing countries and countries witheconomies in transition, effective monitoring of progress towards national aswell as internationally agreed development goals, including the MillenniumDevelopment Goals, is being compromised”. It calls upon “the United Nations system, including the United NationsStatistics Division and the regional commissions and international agencies tosupport national efforts in building and strengthening national statisticalcapacity, in particular of developing countries”.

Over the last few years, the Inter-Agency and Expert Group on MDG Indicators, composed of 27 international agencies and regional commissions, has addressed the concerns raised by countries at the Statistical Commissions and in other fora where the quality of MDG data was discussed. At recent meetings of the United Nations Statistical Commission, member states expressed high appreciation for the work done by the group. Countries and agencies in the IAEG have worked together to develop recommendations and work plans to resolve data gaps and discrepancies and improve the effectiveness of the monitoring. There has been an unprecedented level of collaboration between countries and international agencies, in a continuous effort to improve data quality and transparency, and to improve coordination of capacity building activities. Bringing the two monitoring processes—the national and the global monitoring—closer together will improve the credibility of the statistical system and help build stronger demand for data. As we all know, promoting a strong demand for good quality data is key for mobilizing the necessary resources for statistical development.

This workshop is part of a series of events organized jointly by the regional commissions and the UN Statistics Division, in collaboration with many of the IAEG partners, to promote a reconciliation of national and international sources and assist countries in strengthening their monitoring capacity for the MDGs.

It is now widely recognized that monitoring is a key component of development efforts. Systematic and sustained tracking of progress madeis a necessary condition for the achievement ofall goals. Monitoring keeps the spotlight firmly on the MDGs, informing global and national campaigns and turning the goals and targets into widely recognized measures of successful international cooperation in support of sustainable development.

Failure to adequately assess progress made in some areas, lack of data from the poorest countries and inconsistencies across sourcesmay undermine the overall development efforts and the formulation of necessary policies. Inconsistencies and data gaps may seriously jeopardize monitoring efforts. Inconsistencies between national and international data and across international sources,raise doubts about the reliability of statistics among policy makers and may create conflicts between national statistical authorities and government officials.

Improved coordination of the international statistical system and the delivery of clear consistent messages from the international community on progress made and priorities that need to be addressed are prerequisites for the success of the MDGs.

The Millennium DevelopmentGoals have helped transform the framework for globaldevelopment and made the need for reliable and timely statistics increasingly evident. On this foundation, the effective working partnership among countries, agencies and regional commissions can makethe work for the global and national monitoring of MDGs successful. We can never emphasize enough how important it is that this work be done together, with international statistical agencies working with full countries’ involvement at every step, to the benefit, first of all of countries’ policies and development and to the benefit of informing the global political debate with sound information, to mobilize the necessary resources and undertake the right actions to achieve the MDGs.

This Workshop will mainly focus on health related MDG indicators. Monitoring health is crucial in ECE countries, many of which have suffered impacts on health outcomes in the transition period, due to changes in the provision of health servicesand economic and social adjustments. However, health indicators are among the most difficult to monitor, as many countries do not have yet fully functional vital registration systems and the methodologies to calculate child and maternal mortality rates based on survey data are complex. In many countries of the ECE region, vital statistics and survey estimates are telling different stories, with the former pointing to lower levels of child and maternal mortality than the latter. Strengthening vital registration systems is key to properly monitor the health of populations.

In 2007, a revised monitoring framework was presented at the UN General that included three new indicators to monitoring MDGs 5: adolescent birth rate, antenatal care coverage and unmet need for family planning. Although several ECE countries have information related to these indicators, the use of different definitions and concepts prevents their use for direct MDG monitoring. This Workshop aims at building a collaborative dialogue between your offices and the international agencies responsible for producing the international estimates. This collaboration can improve yours and their capacity to monitor the MDGs, by aligning definitions and helping explain legitimate differences where they exist.

I wish you all a fruitful discussion and look forward to the outcome and recommendations by the group.

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