Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia

Measuring the impact of donors assistanceMeasuring the impact of donors assistance

Jelena Budimir

March, 2015

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• Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia (SORS) has received sufficient support by different donors which contributed to the progress achieved

• Donors: EC, SIDA, WB, UN organizations, ILO, etc.

• Multi-beneficiary statistical cooperation programmes has continuation which contributes to the better planning, quality outputs, cost-benefit ratio, etc.

• Almost all programmes/projects are compatible and have synergy effects

• Importance of donors coordination

Donors’ assistance in SerbiaDonors’ assistance in Serbia

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• Energy statistics• Economic accounts for agriculture• Milk statistics• Livestock and meat statistics• Farm structure statistics• Crop production statistics• Environmental economic accounts• Waste statistics• International trade in goods Statistics• Gross National Income• European System of Accounts• Government finance statistics (GFS)

and Excessive deficit procedure (EDP)• Harmonized indices of consumer prices

(HICP)• Purchasing power parities (PPP)

Areas covered by donors assistance in the previous periodAreas covered by donors assistance in the previous period

• Structural Business Statistics (SBS)• Short-term business statistics (STS)• Business Registers• Inward Foreign affiliates statistics

(IFATS)• Demography, population census and

projections• Employment and unemployment • Earnings and labour cost• Statistics on income and living

conditions EU-SILC• Social Protection ESSPROS• Lifelong learning statistics

24 out of 38 statistical areas from the Screening Agenda were supported by MBPs

- Also, other fields which are not covered by Compendium were supported

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General issues:

• Progress in some statistical area and in general is not only in correlation with donor assistance: internal organization, management activities, internal effort on capacity building, background of cooperation among institutions within statistical system, etc. play important role in institution’s (or statistical areas) progress•When different donors support target the same statistical area it is hard to measure

progress contribution of each of support

General questions:

• What should be measured?• What could be measured? • Which monitoring tools and sources of verification shall be used?

How to measure the impact of assistance?How to measure the impact of assistance?

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What should be measured?• Contribution of assistance to the general objectives and results defined in the Strategy

for statistical cooperation 2014-2020.

• Strategy is the base for all donors’ activities and assistance in the enlargement countries

• A lot of possible indicators are already defined in the Strategy

Strategy objectives:1. Reach and maintain compliance with the acquis in statistics (4 results, 10 possible

indicators)2. Make statistics a better tool for policy purposes (3 results, 10 possible indicators)3. Integrate the NSIs into the European statistical system (4 results, 8 possible indicators)4. Implementing the European Statistics Code of Practice (4 results, 4 possible indicators)5. Strengthen the management capacity of NSI (2 results, 4 possible indicators)

Measuring the impact of assistance in the enlargement Measuring the impact of assistance in the enlargement countriescountries

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Objective 1: Objective 1: Reach and maintain compliance with the acquis in statistics

Results: Possible indicators:

1. Improved availability, quality and comparability of statistical data in priority areas;

1. Number of new statistical variables covered;2. Increased volume of data transmitted to Eurostat, data validated and

published by Eurostat;3. Increased percentage in completeness of data in publications, such as the

Eurostat pocketbook on enlargement countries or the annual Progress reports of the EU Commission;

4. Self-assessments and evaluations in the annual compliance monitoring tool (SMIS+);

5. Produced quality reports

2. Improved register systems;

1. Increased usage of administrative registers for statistical purposes;2. Number of decisions to grant access to confidential data for researchers and

similar data users to encounter the needs of these users from the registers in line with confidentiality rules

3. Increased availability of metadata;

1. Increased number of reports and findings about methodology used and metadata set;

2. Increased satisfaction of users with metadata as expressed in user satisfaction surveys

4. Increased availability of micro-data. 1. Increased volume of micro data transmitted to researchers

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Objective 2 : Objective 2 : Make statistics a better tool for policy purposes

Results: Possible indicators:

1. Create a stable statistical environment in which policy makers have confidence

1. The independence of the statistical authority from political and other external interference in producing and disseminating official statistics is specified in Law on Official Statistics;

2. Coordinating role of national statistical institutes into the national statistical systems is specified in Law on Official Statistics;

3. Statistical confidentiality is guaranteed by Law on Official Statistics;4. Cooperation of producers and users of official statistics on regular base is set up and

formally signed; for instance, the forum for the exchange could be a Statistical Council;

2. Create a clear dissemination policy with the focus how to make it a better tool, how to make it more visible and how to additionally explain statistics

1. Policy makers are kept informed on the methodology of statistical processes and the quality of statistical outputs with respect to the ESS quality criteria.

2. Instructions and guidelines on the statistical production and dissemination processes are provided. These guidelines are in written and publicly available;

3. Information on the methods and procedures used by the statistical authority are publicly available;

4. Statistics are presented in a form that facilitates proper interpretation and meaningful comparisons (the metadata system is publicly available; all disseminated data are published with the explanatory notes, education of users is strategically defined);

3. Raise the quality of statistical data

1. Choices of sources and statistical techniques are informed by statistical considerations. List of available and potential administrative sources is defined, and actions plans of development of administrative registers are prepared;

2. Quality reports are established like the regular practice for all short term and social statistics.

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Objective 3: Objective 3: Integrate the NSIs into the European statistical system

Results: Possible indicators:

1. Increased knowledge about the acquis, European statistics and their compilation methods, standards and terminologies

1. Number of staff trained;2. Number of Eurostat meetings attended;3. Number of traineeship programmes realized;

2. Improved cooperation between ESS and NSIs of enlargement countries

1. Number of projects the NSIs has participated in;2. Number of study visits from enlargement countries to Member

States;3. Number of committees, task forces, high level meetings attended;

3. More involvement of main statistics providers (stakeholders) in NSSs within the European Statistical System

1. Number of stakeholder staff attended to Eurostat meetings, trainings;

4. Established bilateral partnerships

1. Number of bilateral partnership examples

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Objective 4: Objective 4: Implementing the European Statistics Code of Practice

Results: Possible indicators:

1. The professional independence of the NSI is ensured

1. The existence of clear rules for the appointment, dismissal and length of mandate of the head of the NSI in the statistical law or other relevant legal acts;

2. Improve the quality of statistical information produced by the NSI

1. The existence of a quality management system within the NSI and reports on implementation measures;

3. Strengthen the role of NSIs as coordinators of the official statistical system

1. Legislation stipulates the rights of the NSI regarding the coordination of official statistics and the access, creation, improvement or discontinuation administrative registers;

4. To measure the progress achieved in the implementation of the CoP

1. Second round of Peer Reviews conducted in the enlargement countries.

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Objective 5: Objective 5: Strengthen the management capacity of NSI

Results: Possible indicators:

1. Increased HRM capacity; 1. Existence of a documented and openly available human resource policy;2. Significantly lower turnover percentile for every three year period;

1. Increased managerial capacity

1. 70% of all data collection projects (or other assisted projects) for every three year period of the IPA -20 strategy are successfully implemented;

2. Feedback on management issues in staff satisfaction surveys is increasingly positive.

Strategy defines the total number of:

-Objectives: 5

-Results to be achieved: 16

-Possible indicators: 36

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• Defining the clear methodology for measuring the progress in correlation with donors’ assistance

• Selection the key indicators for measuring the progress, among indicators already defined in the Strategy

• The possibility of introduction of a composite index?

• Choosing the indicators for which there is a reliable tool for monitoring

• Improvement of existing tools for monitoring for the purpose of measuring the impact of assistance (SMIS+, Edamis, AGA, LPR, PR etc.)

Ideas for future stepsIdeas for future steps

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Thank you for your attention!

Jelena BudimirStatistical Office of the Republic of Serbia