Country Perspective (Ethiopia)

43rd Session of the UN Statistical Commission (UNSC) in New York,

Saturday, 25 February 2012 Saturday,

By Samia Zekaria

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Statistics for Transparency, Accountability, and Results

Statistics provide the evidence needed to improve decision making, document results, and heighten public accountability.

The demand for improved statistics to monitor the Millennium Development Goals and the parallel effort to support a culture of results-based management has stimulated a decade long effort to improve statistics.

The Busan action plan for statistics came up with a perfect message as to how governments of each country could be transparent and accountable for their citizens by using statistics.

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Developing Road Map to improve Statistics in Africa The Development of the NSDS guideline by P21

has brought all partners of NSS, policy makers and major data users on board.

Advocating for the improvement of statistics among users, donors, producers and policy makers has created awareness both at national and international levels.

In a nut shell, PARIS21 is an effective forum of donors and development partners and network to promote, influence, and facilitate statistical capacity development and the better use of statistics at the national and international level.

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Main Achievements in Statistics in Africa for Transparency, Accountability, and Results

Main Achievements in Statistics in Africa for Transparency, Accountability, and Results

Most SSA countries have developed their NSDS documents in which they have clearly identified their gaps and their priorities for the plan period.

Almost all countries have carried out/ will carry out the 2010 round PHC in Africa except Somalia

The 2005 and 2011 round ICP has contributed a lot in building the statistical capacity of NSOs in Africa.

Countries strive to align donors’ support with their strategy in a coordinated manner whenever it is possible based on NSDS guideline .

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Implementing NSDS in Ethiopia - improving Statistics for Transparency, Accountability and

Results

There are a number of areas where the CSA is engaged in improving its data quality and timeliness by introducing new technologies with technical and financial support of development partners.

Through establishing standards for statistical work in the country, the CSA came up with data quality assurance procedures and designed capacity building programs for the NSS partners through recently adopted Ethiopian Data Quality Assessment Framework (EDQAF).

The effort in standardizing concepts and classifications in producing good statistics by all NSS and the attempts to harmonize statistical data through question bank is also the area of CSA’s emphasis in the plan period.  5

Implementing NSDS in Ethiopia - improving Statistics for Transparency, Accountability and

ResultsIn order to align with the country’s 5 year

Growth and Transformation Plan, the plan period of NSDS has been extended by one more year until 2015.

So far no proper evaluation has been carried out, but tremendous efforts have been made to implement and achieve the targeted milestone in the past two and half years.

Mid- term Evaluation has been planned to be carried out towards third quarter of 2012. Based on the outcome of the evaluation the next round NSDS is expected to be revised. 6

Principal Objectives of Busan Action Plan for Statistics (BAPS)

BAPS has three principal objectives and five actions with indicators to track progress of partner countries. The objectives are:Fully integrate statistics in decision makingPromote open access to statisticsIncrease resources for statistical systems

The action plan will require substantial effort and investment across the range of development actors. While it establishes priorities, it must still be translated into a set of time-bound and monitor able tasks.

Financial support is expected to come primarily from domestic revenues, but donor support remains essential and new sources of financial assistance should also be sought to supplement existing ones

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Fully integrate statistics in decision making; The country’s 5-years Growth and Transformation

Plan has integrated statistics in its decision making process

Promote open access to statistics:The CSA’s website allows all data users to

download all statistical reports produced from censuses and surveys to promote open access to statistics with the relevant metadata . Moreover , one percent of the 2007 population and housing census micro data is freely available in the public use domain to be accessible for all data users.

Increase resources for statistical systemsThe Government of Ethiopia (GoE) has repeatedly

reinforced its commitment to the production of accurate, reliable, timely, and cost effective statistical data

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The Three Principal Objectives of BAPS - Ethiopian Context

CSA is Promoting Open Access to Statistics

Sets a clear micro data access policy endorsed by the Council of Ministers

The Central Statistical Agency (CSA) has done a tremendous work over the recent years in documenting, archiving and disseminating its surveys and censuses, building a strong partnership with the International Household Survey Network (IHSN) and Accelerated Data Program (ADP).

CSA utilized the DDI standard to systematically document and archive close to 100 of its surveys conducted since 1995 through a well established cataloging system called ENADA available through the CSA website.

The ongoing effort to establish the Question Bank having all the concepts, definitions, classifications , coding schema and model questions is expected to move the CSA open access further one step forward.

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Examining the Five Actions of the Busan Action Plan in Ethiopian Context

Action 1: Strengthen and re-focus national and regional statistical strategies with particular emphasis on improving statistical systems that address country-level development priorities

The Development and implementation of NSDS The inclusion of statistical programs in the GTP

Action 2: Implement standards for data preservation, documentation, and dissemination that permit full public access to statistics. The ENADA system The attempt to develop the Q-Bank

Action 3: Develop programs to increase the knowledge and skills needed to use statistics effectively for planning, analysis, monitoring, and evaluation The ongoing effort to conduct need assessment on statistical

knowledge gaps and the establishment of the statistical training center

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Action 4: Build and maintain results monitoring instruments to track outcomes of all global summits and high level forums

The establishment of the M&E system since 1996 for better monitoring the progress made could be a good example .

Action 5: Ensure financing for statistical information is robust and that funding instruments and approaches reflect the new modalities and actors in development finance. The sustainable commitment of the Government for the

statistical activities and the support of Development Partners are also important.

In general, substantial effort and investment by all development partners in terms of financial support, knowledge exchange and technical assistances is required to build the capacity of the NSS as well as that of CSA to effectively implement the action plan.

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Examining the Five Actions of the Action Plan in Ethiopian Context

Top Priority Areas identified the Need External Assistance to Effectively implement BAPS

Priority One“Support to agriculture, food

security and environment information systems for policy, strategy and interventions”

Objective Improved data quality on key agricultural, food

security and natural resources data sets disseminated and analyzed for policy, strategy and interventions at federal and regional levels.”

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Top Priority that Needs External Assistance ( cont’d)

Priority One The Project Document is at its final stage

prepared with the support of FAO financial assistances. The project has concrete implementation milestones, indicative costs, funding gaps, and expected outputs and outcomes.

PROPOSED FUNDING: USD $11,941,433 DURATION: 5 YEARS – period

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Top Priority That needs External Assistance

Priority TwoEstablishment of Statistical Business

Register(SBR)A concept note has been prepared and finalized by an

international consultant last November 2011.

This document describes all aspects of the proposed SBR; It provides the basis for establishing the SBR Development

Project;

Stat Canada/ CIDA has been requested to assist in developing the SBR project proposal document.

Once this document is ready it is possible to come up with the concrete implementation milestones, indicative costs, funding gaps, and expected outputs and outcomes.14

Top Priority That needs External Assistance (Cont’d)

Priority ThreeEstablishment of a Training Center for the National Statistical System

One of the critical areas identified in the NSDS document is building the capacity of the NSS through the provision of continuous statistical training. More specifically, the NSDS document emphasized the need for the CSA to develop a training program for the NSS staff based on the need assessment analysis.

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Top Priority That needs External Assistance

Priority ThreeThe establishment of this training center

requires a number of preparatory activities that requires both financial and technical assistance.

UNECA/ACS has been approached to provide TA to conduct needs assessment.

Determining the role of CSA in supporting and advising line ministries to develop their capacity in the production of reliable statistical information is very crucial.  16

Top Priority That needs External Assistance

Priority Four Institutional Capacity Building- Office

Buildings

To improve the working environment and creating modern management and technological practices, building of additional offices for HQ that serves as training centers and new buildings for branch offices are very crucial.

Any major investment in the statistical system in Ethiopia should consider rebuilding or renovating the existing buildings for the CSA both at the HQ and its Branch Offices. It is expected to utilize the SRF-CF for these purposes.

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Top Priority That needs External Assistance

Priority Four Institutional Capacity Building- Office Buildings

Creating Modern Offices would enhance the efforts to developing human resources not only in the NSS but also within the CSA.

To provide training and perform joint working among NSS members, a classroom equipped with computers are very important that need to be considered.

This classroom could be used to train NSS members, reinforce and improve data quality and in particular to undertake a wider range of analytical activities. The overall objective is to improve statistical skills and analytical capacity throughout the NSS.

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