EUROPEAN COMMISSIONEUROSTAT

Directorate A: Cooperation in the European Statistical System; International cooperation; ResourcesUnit A3: Statistical cooperation

Doc. PGSC/2017/03

Meeting of thePolicy Group on Statistical Cooperation

19 - 20 October 2017

Premium Beach Hotel, Durres Albania

Minutes of the 2017 MGSC meeting

Point 1.4 of the Agenda

I. APPROVAL OF THE AGENDA AND OF THE MINUTES OF THE PREVIOUS MEETINGThe adoption of the agenda and the minutes of the previous meeting were included in the agenda as separate points and discussed during the meeting (please see points 1.1 and 1.2 under Section III – List of points discussed).

The agenda of the 2017 meeting of the Management Group on Statistical Cooperation (MGSC) and the minutes of the 2016 meeting of the MGSC were adopted.

II. NATURE OF THE MEETINGThe meeting was non-public.

III. LIST OF POINTS DISCUSSED1. GENERAL ISSUESMs Junker (Eurostat) opened the meeting, welcomed the participants and presented the staff changes in Eurostat’s Unit A3, Statistical Cooperation.

Because of last minute agenda changes, the intervention of Mr Everaers (Eurostat) on the latest developments in the European Statistical System (ESS) and Eurostat was postponed to the beginning of the second day of the meeting (see agenda item 8 below).

1.1 Adoption of the agenda

The agenda of the 2017 meeting of the Management Group on Statistical Cooperation (MGSC) was adopted as proposed.

Conclusions: Agenda of the 2017 meeting of the Management Group on Statistical Cooperation (MGSC) was adopted.

1.2 Adoption of MGSC 2016 minutes

Ms Junker (Eurostat) mentioned the issues which had been discussed during the MGSC meeting in 2016, including:

the update on the political context by DG NEAR and DG DEVCO; information on past and future population censuses (2011 and 2021 rounds); state of play of various cooperation programmes (Instrument for Pre-Accession

(IPA)), European Neighbourhood Programme, Medstat, Pan African Statistical Programme);

Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and their monitoring; Information on the transformative agenda and related conferences; donor coordination.

The draft version of the minutes had been sent to the participants in July 2016 and comments received were integrated to the extent possible.

Conclusions: The minutes of the 2016 meeting of the Management Group on Statistical Cooperation (MGSC) were adopted.

1.3 Information from PGSC 2016 meeting

Ms Junker (Eurostat) presented the main issues discussed during the meeting of the Policy Group on Statistical Cooperation (PGSC), which took place in Zadar, Croatia on 13-14 October 2016.

This meeting was organized back to back with the United Nations Statistical Division (UNSD) conference on a transformative agenda, held also in Zadar, Croatia on 12 October 2016, which was the last conference in a series of seven regional meetings oriented towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The participants of the PGSC 2016 meeting were updated on the political developments in the enlargement countries, country reports, the commitment on confidence, peer reviews and the process to implement them, and the involvement of the enlargement countries in certain projects of the ESS Vision 2020.

During separate group discussions, the top management addressed the issue of the Generic Law on Official Statistics (GLOS) developed for the Eastern European countries by Eurostat together with the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) and the European Free Trade Association (EFTA). It was a common understanding that it was not necessary to develop a separate version of GLOS specifically adapted to the needs of the enlargement countries. Rather, it would be useful to share best practice between the enlargement countries in how the GLOS could be used for revising their national legislative frameworks. The heads of the international departments discussed the IPA 2017 multi-beneficiary statistical cooperation programme and what kind of projects should be included.

The data inclusion report was presented during the meeting to inform the countries on the data sent by the enlargement countries to Eurostat and those that are included in different reports, publications and the database.

Conclusions: Participants took note of the information about the 2016 PGSC meeting.

2. SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOAL INDICATORS2.1 Overview of SDG indicators

Mr Gebhard (Eurostat) reported that the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (SD) consisting of 17 goals and 169 targets was adopted at the UN Sustainable Development Summit in 2015. He explained also that a regular follow up and review of progress towards its implementation is part of the 2030 Agenda.

Concerning the monitoring of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), a distinction between three levels needs to be made: global, regional (concerning UN regions) and national monitoring. In addition, there is also a thematic aspect of monitoring. In this regard Mr Gebhard explained that:

At global level, a set of 244 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) indicators (including unavailable ones) will be used for monitoring; these indicators were agreed at the 2016 meeting of the UN Statistical Commission (UNSC) and refined and adopted at the 2017 meeting of the UNSC. There will be a possibility of annual minor refinements of this list of indicators as well as two comprehensive reviews, planned to take place in 2020 and 2025. There is a Tier classification for the SDG indicators, based on the availability of methodology and data: Tier 1) a methodology exists and data are widely available; Tier 2) a methodology has been established but data is not yet easily available and Tier 3) an internationally agreed methodology has not yet been developed. A mechanism was proposed at the 2017 meeting of the UNSC for updating the Tier classification every year. Custodian agencies have been

designated for each indicator and are tasked to provide work plans on how to develop in particular Tier 3 indicators. Concerning the monitoring of SDGs at global level, the UN has published 2 reports based on about 50 indicators.

At regional level, no monitoring is carried out, but there are some initiatives (e.g. the UN Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) is preparing a roadmap for its member countries, showing how these countries could organise and develop their capacity).

At national level the monitoring has to be focused on the National Strategies for Sustainable Development (NSSD). It is assumed that the main actors at this level will be the National Statistical Offices (NSOs) and Other National Authorities (ONAs) according to the specific situation in different countries. The indicator set used for monitoring at this level will be a national SDG indicator set.

At EU level (although not an official level in monitoring the SDGs) the monitoring has to be based on SD in the EU context with a focus on EU policies. The main actors are Eurostat and other DGs. In November 2016 the EC released a communication on next steps for a Sustainable European Future. In parallel with this communication, Eurostat published a bridge publication presenting 51 indicators selected ad hoc which present the baseline of the 17 SDGs.

From 2017 onwards the European Commission will regularly monitor the SDGs in the EU context. Eurostat is the leading DG in the Commission for developing a reference indicator framework for this purpose, and works in close cooperation with other DGs and Member State's experts (members of the working group on SDGs). The EU SDG indicator set will contain less than 100 ready to use indicators. The number of indicators reflects the intention to monitor SDG's at goal level in the EU context and not to focus on each target of the global agenda.

Mr Gebhard (Eurostat) further explained that Eurostat is a member of two sub-groups of the Inter-Agency Expert Group on SDGs (IAEG-SDGs): the one on SDMX and the one concerning geospatial information. When needed, Eurostat will support the development of Tier 3 indicators but it does not intend to enlarge any currently existing survey exclusively in order to fill data gaps on particular global SDG indicators. Furthermore, Eurostat does not intend to play a role in the reporting on the global SDG indicators; this will be organised between the countries and the UN.

Conclusions: Participants took note of the information about the approach chosen by Eurostat and the ESS to report on SDG indicators and the outstanding work to define a draft list of indicators that can be used for reporting on sustainable development and SDGs. This list of indicators may potentially be used by the enlargement countries as well. Participants took also note of the information that no separate list of indicators will be compiled for SDG purposes only and that Eurostat will not be involved in data reporting to the UN as this is a Member States prerogative.

2.2 Coordination of SDG indicators on country level

Ms Markovic (Montenegro) presented an overview of how Montenegro is coordinating the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) indicators. Montenegro adopted its 2030 National Strategy for Sustainable Development (NSSD) in 2016 (the first National Strategy of this kind in the world), based on the 2030 Agenda. Work started before that, in 2015, with the designation of the Ministry of Sustainable Development and Tourism as the main coordinator, and consultation of a wide range of stakeholders. Using the UN SDG indicator list as base, the indicators relevant for Montenegro were selected and responsibility for each one was assigned to one of the 26 ministries and agencies. One important step in this process

was to decide which of the institutions were producers of official statistics and which were not, because this will trigger discussions on how to assess the quality of the data produced. Just 31% of the indicators fall under the responsibility of the official producers, mainly MONSTAT.

MONSTAT is able to produce 12 indicators fully, and 13 indicators partially. It expects to be able to produce 17 additional indicators by 2018, and 9 more in the period 2018-2024.

In order to meet the challenges of the SDG indicators, MONSTAT has established a new team to follow the indicator work and to monitor the implementation of the Global Action Plan for Sustainable Development Data (CTGAP) adopted by the United Nations Statistical Commission (UNSC) in March 2017. The established team is strengthening partnerships with local and foreign partners, and potential donors. The different departments of MONSTAT have to think of introducing new methods for data collection and increase the use of administrative sources. MONSTAT will have to continue working on capacity building and integrating the principles of the CTGAP 2019-2022.

Conclusions: Participants took note of the information provided by MONSTAT on the country level work on mapping indicators and responsibilities of different institutions in Montenegro as well as on the establishment of effective coordination mechanisms and the respective involvement of MONSTAT. Information was also provided on the plans of MONSTAT to produce additional indicators in 2018 and by 2024.

The discussion revealed that many countries have implemented a first mapping of indicators with a view to identify relevant indicators at country level, their mapping into existing policies and the establishment of responsibilities and coordination mechanism to ensure appropriate country reporting to the UN.

2.3 Feedback from the activities of High level group for partnership, coordination and capacity-building for statistics

Ms Pál (Hungary) presented the process and the work carried out so far by the High-level group for partnership, coordination and capacity building for statistics (HLG-PCBB). She informed about the mandate of the group, which is to establish a global partnership for the development of statistics to ensure increased availability of SDG indicators. Ms Pál presented the composition of the group as well as the meetings held so far. The main output of the HLG-PCBB is the Global Action Plan (CTGAP) drafted in 2016 that was presented at the UN World Data Forum in Cape Town, in January 2017, and adopted by the UNSC in March 2017. The CTGAP identifies six strategic areas on three levels – global, regional and national. Ms Pál stressed that the aim is to achieve a process driven by the NSIs of the individual countries.

Discussions

Ms Gandolfo (Italy) underlined that the Cape Town Global Action Plan (CTGAP) provides concrete actions for each objective and could be helpful in the design of statistical projects. She highlighted that the CTGAP feeds into the regional roadmap being finalised by United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) and to be submitted to the next Conference of European Statisticians (CES) in June 2017. The recently adopted UN resolution for the CTGAP articulates clearly the coordination role of NSIs in statistical systems and this represents an important achievement.

Ms Santos (Portugal) proposed a stock taking exercise to define the initiatives of each NSI in relation to SDGs and to collect information on the NSI's role, national efforts underway to map SDGs, the range of other sources of information that are considered and dissemination

platforms that are developed to reach a broader public. She informed that INE is mapping existing information, identifying possible sources in close collaboration with other ministries and public entities to feed the first national voluntary review which will be presented to the High-level Political Forum (HLPF) in July 2017. INE is creating a web platform, within its own website, for disseminating SDG indicators. The first phase consists of including indicators belonging to official statistics, they are already in the database. In the second stage (from April 2017), the NSI will start to gradually incorporate data from other national sources.

Ms Hocevar (Slovenia) emphasised that many indicators are not produced by the NSS and are not of a statistical nature. In her view, an NSI cannot coordinate all SDG indicators although it must be active in the process.

Mr Rothen (Switzerland) pointed out that the resolution adopted at the United Nations Statistical Commission (UNSC) gives a clear mandate to the UNSC to work actively with the High Level Political Forum. The UNECE's regional roadmap goes into more detail than the CTGAP but both documents are coherent. Before the next CES in June 2017, there will be an expert meeting in Geneva on 10-12 April 2017 to discuss the roadmap and its recommendations. UNECE conducted a regional survey two months ago with more than 65 countries providing information. He encouraged participation in the Geneva meeting and sharing of national experiences.

Ms Pedersen (Norway) informed that Statistics Norway will continue focusing its cooperation on institutional strengthening rather than on SDG related projects in particular domains. She emphasised the importance of assuring that progress in institutional matters is part of the SDG reporting, and highlighted the link with the National Strategy for the Development of Statistics (NSDS). Continuing priorities for Statistics Norway will be the use and development of statistical registers, and Civil Registration and Vital Statistics (CRVS).

Ms Bell (UNICEF) asked whether there will be an overarching coordination mechanism between Eurostat, the UN custodian agencies and EU Member States. She referred to the specific case of EU Guidelines for the Promotion and Protection of child rights, adopted last week, and including a monitoring framework. Mr Gebhard (Eurostat) replied that Eurostat is unaware of such an overarching mechanism. In practice, coordination depends on the indicator in question because different organisations are relevant and many indicators already have well established data and work flows.

Ms Simoni (Albania) shared the Albanian situation with regard to the SDG monitoring. The Prime Minister's office is in the lead but the NSI is the principal actor. The NSI reviewed the indicators, their availability and the producing agency. If line ministries are responsible then indictors do not belong to official statistics. A baseline report and Action Plan should be ready by the end of April 2017 and then a workshop with the line ministries and other actors will be organised to review tasks and progress.

Ms Fransen (Netherlands) described the Dutch situation: the political level (Ministry of Foreign Affairs) leads on the monitoring process, but the NSI has the coordination role to produce indicators, with close cooperation between the two. The NSI, despite being the sole statistical authority in the Netherlands, estimates that it can produce only 35% of the indicators required. For the Dutch government a ministerial level mechanism has been established and consultation of other institutions is underway to review relevant data and their quality. The NSI developed a roadmap for monitoring the SDGs and additional costs for their production. The Government has accepted the roadmap and the costs.

Ms Francoz (France) informed that France has mapped the SDG indicators. The French NSS is decentralised and many indicators are produced by statistical services within the ministries. It is not yet determined whether the NSI (INSEE) or the Ministry for Sustainable Development will be the leading agency. As regards international cooperation, France will focus on two topics: 1) the use of census data to calculate SDG indicators, and 2) SDG 16 on governance, peace and security. For the latter, France co-organised a well-attended side event during the last Committee of Directors-General of National Statistics Offices (CODG) meeting in Abidjan in cooperation with L’Institut de recherche pour le développement - Développement, institutions et mondialisation (IRD-DIAL) and the African Union. Africans are more advanced than European countries on governance statistics and have developed survey modules that can be attached to household surveys.

Ms Cánovas Zapata (Spain) raised the issue of ownership and the fact that the UN is publishing EU Member States' data on its website that conflict with the country's own figures. Eurostat reminded that with regard to SDG reporting at the global level, the UN custodian agencies are in the lead, and these agencies use their own estimations. There is a need for further discussions on how to assure full coherence between these two sets of data.

Ms Bluff-Higgins (UK) reminded about the motto 'Leaving No One Behind' and the need for more disaggregated data to monitor the situation of different population groups. At the UNSC 2017, the UK announced a new City Group looking at better ways to disaggregate data according to age groups and measuring sustainable development in ageing populations. A number of countries have already signed up to this initiative (Japan, Philippines, Denmark, Namibia, Uganda and Mexico) but the group would benefit from the involvement of other European, particularly Southern and Eastern European countries who are struggling with aging issues. The UK invites interested EU NSIs to sign up (please contact international@statistics.gov.uk).

Ms Pál (Hungary) was pleased that the lessons from the MDG process had been taken into account and hence, that the NSIs are part of the process. The major challenge now is to strengthen capacity to meet the SDG requirements not just in developing countries but also within Europe.

In response to questions, Mr Gebhard (Eurostat) clarified that, with regard to the SDGs, Eurostat will use existing indicators based on existing data that is routinely collected as part of the current EU legislation. Eurostat will not collect additional data from Member States. The Sustainable Development Indicator set was developed to monitor the Sustainable Development strategy of the EU and is framed within the 10 themes of that Strategy. This set will be replaced with a new one in line with the 17 goals of the 2030 Agenda. A mapping process is on-going. Some SD indicators may not be continued, and some will be reused.

Conclusions: Participants took note of the activities of the High-level Group for Partnership, Coordination and Capacity-Building for statistics for the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (HLG-PCCB) and its activities, meetings and future plans. It was highlighted that SDGs are an important tool to promote statistical cooperation and capacity building at a wider range to government institutions and donors. It was commonly agreed that statistical cooperation should not only focus on the SDGs as such but also include activities related to the strengthening of the institutional set-up and governance mechanisms for statistics. Examples were provided on specific activities to develop and apply methodology for indicators on governance, peace and security related to goal 16 demonstrating that work to improve methodology and availability of certain indicators is already under way.

Furthermore the Cape Town Global Action Plan together with the draft resolution adopted by the UN Statistical Commission for ECOSOC, named “Work of the UN Statistical Commission pertaining to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development” was considered an important input to enhance the coordination role of the NSI in the national statistical system (NSS). While the coordination role of the NSI for the NSS is crucial and will ensure that good quality indicators are produced, those indicators that are not considered official statistics and that are outside the NSS will pose a real challenge in terms of ensuring their quality.

Participants agreed that the provision of SDG indicators will be a major opportunity for capacity building and cooperation in the coming years.

Participants took note of the information about the creation of a city group on "Aging" as announced by the ONS (UK) and of the call to join the group.

3. RECENT POLITICAL DEVELOPMENTS3.1 Enlargement process

Mr Wild (DG NEAR) mentioned that the enlargement process is maintained and the policy has not changed; even though there will be no enlargement during the mandate of the current Commission (2014-2019). The methodology for assessing progress made by the candidate countries and potential candidates has changed towards focusing on the state of play rather than progress in the past year and in particular on three fundamental issues: economic governance, public administration reform and rule of law. As part of economic governance, the enlargement countries are part of a process similar to the European Semester of the Member States. For that purpose, availability of data on national accounts in the broad sense, balance of payments, unemployment and employment as well as income and living conditions were important. The Economic Reform Programmes (ERM) of the enlargement countries are already incorporating many of these data. The timing of the annual report on the enlargement countries will change to coincide with the ERM reporting. Thus the Commission will not issue any country report in 2017, but the next reports will be published in spring 2018. The country reports were restructured and chapter 18 Statistics was one of the pilot chapters. The experience of this recalibration was good and the Council appreciated the more scientific approach to measure progress towards alignment with the EU standards.

Furthermore, Mr Wild touched upon the Berlin process with annual summits between the six Western Balkan countries and the EU. On 12 July 2017, the summit will take place in Trieste, Italy with decisions on a number of substantial investments being expected. The meeting will also be used to discuss a roadmap to pursue a common regional market for services, capital, goods and skilled persons within the Western Balkan countries.

In the overview of latest developments and state of play in each enlargement country, Mr Wild started with Turkey where several dramatic events took place in 2016. The Venice Commission (of the Council of Europe) expressed a critical opinion on recent developments in Turkey. However, the EU will continue the dialogue with the Turkish government. He noted that 3 million refugees are currently located in Turkey and that since some time illegal border crossings decreased significantly. An EU Refugee Facility was launched and 2.2 billion € have been allocated out of 3 billion € foreseen for 2016/2017. The Council is currently discussing an upgrade of the EU-Turkey Customs Union which would benefit both the Turkish and the European economy.

Montenegro has come furthest in accession negotiations among the current enlargement countries. Statistics is one of the 26 open negotiation chapters. Two chapters are already

closed and three more chapters may be opened at the next accession conference. The integration of Montenegro in NATO is proceeding as planned.

The statistics chapter for Serbia (chapter 18) was opened in February 2017 and it is now up to Serbia to present its position on this chapter. Mr Wild underlined that an acceptable proposal on the statistical regions in Serbia (for the NUTS classification) remains a key for further progress in the negotiations on statistics. He mentioned that some Member States were reluctant to open further chapters before progress in the ones currently open is visible. Further normalisation of the relations between Serbia and Kosovo1 is expected by the EU.

The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia is a candidate country since 2005 and the Commission has renewed its recommendation to open accession negotiations. However, the name issue was not solved and lately additional issues were added, such as the difficult process of forming a government after the early elections held in December 2016.

The developments in Albania in relation to accession are on track. The next step would be to open accession negotiations, but so far the Council has not pronounced an opinion in this regard. Justice reform was the most important issue for the country and a process of vetting judges in the country has started, with the Commission leading an International Monitoring Operation.

A questionnaire for assessing the current situation on acquis compliance was sent to Bosnia and Herzegovina by the Commission, with a deadline end of May 2017. The answers will form the basis for the opinion on the application of the country to join the EU. This opinion might be part of the enlargement package in spring 2018. Due to the complex setup of the country, the questionnaire posed a challenge for the different entities in the country in their attempt to provide a common answer. However, the Commission insisted that the country speaks with one voice.

The Stabilisation and Association Agreement (SAA) with Kosovo is in force since 1 April 2016 with an important stimulus for the economy, especially for investments and trade. Visa liberalisation is also on the agenda. The Parliament of Kosovo needs to take a decision on the demarcation of the border with Montenegro. Normalisation of relations between Kosovo and Serbia are also of utmost importance.

Conclusions: Participants took note of the latest news in the enlargement process and of the information on countries and their progress in the accession process, including the information on particular promising developments and difficulties in some of the countries.

3.2 European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP)

Mr Wild (DG NEAR) explained how DG NEAR was established by merging a part of DG DEVCO and the former DG ENLARGEMENT. In 2015 a joint communication on the ENP review was adopted after a long consultation procedure with the stakeholders. The goal of the revised ENP is the stabilisation of the neighbourhood by stimulating economic growth. A joint communication on the roll out of the new approach will be released in May 2017. The revised ENP includes the following five priorities:

Good governance, democracy, rule of law and human rights, dialogue with the local civil society as an important factor in democracy;

Stabilisation and security as some of the countries were affected by terrorism and experience organised crime and cybercrime;

1 * This designation is without prejudice to positions on status, and is in line with UNSCR 1244 and the ICJ Opinion on the Kosovo declaration of independence.

Economic development so as to prevent radicalisation through the creation of better job opportunities and by improving the capacities of the government to address economic issues;

Migration and mobility so as to dismantle human smuggling and promoting mutually beneficial migration and mobility as partial answer to an aging Europe;

Visibility, communication and outreach to increase visibility of the ENP.

Mr Wild (DG NEAR) provided furthermore an overview about the ENP countries, in particular for Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine as their Association Agreement (AA) includes a Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area (DFTCA). In the ENP South, Jordan and Lebanon are seriously affected by the refugee crisis. For Palestine and Israel the EU is in favour of the "2 States" solution. Tunisia represents one of the lighthouses of changes in the Mediterranean region but needs stabilisation; the EU doubled its financial support to Tunisia to boost economic growth. Algeria adopted new Partnership Priorities in March 2017 while in Egypt negotiations are ongoing.

Finally, Mr Wild mentioned that the Union for the Mediterranean developed a roadmap for cooperation in the ENP South region in January 2017. Regarding the Eastern Partnership, the Riga Summit in 2015 established the following priorities: economic development, market opportunities, strengthening institutions, good governance, connectivity and energy efficiency, climate change, mobility and people to people contacts. Regarding the League of Arab states and the EU, a dialogue on common political issues has been established (mainly concerning organised crime and migration).

Discussions

Ms Pellicciotti (Italy) referred to the two instruments mentioned by the presenter (trust funds and joint programming) and asked for clarifications on the way these instruments work.

Mr Wild (DG NEAR) explained that for the trust funds the budget comes from the EU budget form the Member States and other donors. On the other hand, in the case of the joint programming, the funds come from the EU budget but the programming of assistance is done together with the Member States.

Ms Junker (Eurostat) added that the funds for the joint programming come from the EU Multi-annual financial framework. This seven-year framework is further broken down by the Single Support Framework (SSF) documents usually covering 3-4 years, while annual programmes cover assistance projects for a given year. Joint programming materialises through the involvement of Member States at political level (through discussions in the European Parliament and the Council) and at programming level (discussions in the IPA or ENI Committees to decide on priorities for funding).

Mr Täube (EFTA) asked if EU attaches more importance to certain regions.

Mr Wild (DG NEAR) answered that the goals of policies concerning certain regions are different. He underlined that the intensity of cooperation is higher for the Enlargement countries, as they have to comply with the "acquis". Regarding ENP countries, cooperation is based on certain agreed priorities (e.g. refugees for the ENP South) and varies according to their commitment.

Conclusions: participants took note of the recent developments in the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) and the planned communication on the roll-out of the revised ENP as well as of the information about progress and the state-of-play of the political

process in the individual countries. Information was also provided on regional platforms of cooperation and the planning process of technical assistance to the countries.

3.3 Update on development cooperation

Mr Conzato (DG DEVCO) reported that the DG for international cooperation and development had received further responsibilities in the context of SDG reporting and managing policy instruments. These cover not only the Development Cooperation Instrument (DCI) under the EU budget, but also the European Development Fund (EDF), which is based on financial transfers from EU Member States to the ACP region.

He explained that the approval of the 2030 Agenda had called for a change in the EU Policy framework and that the Commission is currently in a process of revising both its Agenda 2012 (Agenda for Change) and the European Consensus (document by the Commission/ Council/Parliament of 2005). A joint communication for the new Consensus is now in a consultation process and will be presented to the Foreign Affairs Council in May 2017.

The time table for the adoption of the new Consensus foresees its adoption on 3 May 2017 by the Council and the Parliament and the joint signature in June 2017 in the margin of the European Development Days. In July 2017 it will be presented at the UN High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development.

The new Consensus has been triggered by emerging global challenges not yet covered in the original version (such as migration flows and security) and the UN 2030 Agenda. Its structure around five priorities reflects the objectives of the EU external action as set out in article 21.2 of the Lisbon Treaty. The first part thus draws from the 2030 Agenda, while its central part focuses on EU policies. Different from the MDG based context, the new approach addresses development countries more as partners than as beneficiaries, a change that is also reflected in the new instruments, processes and dynamics related to external assistance.

In response to the 2030 Agenda three main documents were adopted by the European Commission on 22 November 2016 for a new common vision on the EU development policy:

Communication on the next steps for a sustainable European future;

Proposal for a new European Consensus on Development;

Communication on a renewed partnership with African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries (after expiry of the Cotonou Agreement end 2020).

In the new vision, official development assistance (ODA) will no longer be a key tool. Innovative ways will instead be put in place, addressing e.g. in a more precise way middle-income countries. A clear policy framework for this, however, still has to be established.

DEVCO’s programming cycle, currently covering a seven-year perspective, is being examined for compliance with the aspirations of the new developments, in particular with regard to the two most difficult areas of migration and security. For migration, the approach of looking more at the causes of migration has led to first results, and thus contributed to avoiding the image of the EU not being able to handle the situation.

Within the innovative methods, trust funds present an implementation modality that allows assistance on the ground in situations for which normal instruments are not adapted. Bigger DEVCO trust funds have been designed for assistance in Central Africa and Colombia (under discussion).

Among the key drivers for sustainable development, gender equality is high on the agenda. In this area the EU asks developing countries to go beyond the EU gender plan, despite the

reluctance of many partner countries due to cultural and religious reasons. Youth is a priority in the context of inclusive growth and sustainable job creation. It is also part of another EU instrument for external investment. In this field a regulation is currently discussed by the Council which aims at triggering initiatives through leverage, using a system of guarantees that facilitates and encourages private investment. A second large EU programme supports sustainable and renewable energy in the context of climate change. These initiatives constitute the main axes of EU support in the coming years.

As for the implementation of the consensus, stronger coordination with the EU Member States is envisaged, in particular as concerns the means of implementation and activities beyond ODA. There is furthermore a strong call to focus on achieving results and effectiveness in managing development programmes and projects. The results framework used so far for programming is currently revised for compliance with the new objectives. Once finalised, it will serve as the basis for future result reporting in the framework of the SDG indicators.

After adoption of the new Consensus, a mainstreaming of its principles in the various development tools is envisaged. This will, in operational terms, be of impact for three main components: mid-term reviews, programming and reporting, and future development instruments, and will also lead to changes in legislation on external assistance. The Commission has to provide an evaluation of current development instruments by the end of 2017. In the future the results reports will be included in the annual reports of cooperation (e.g. in the annual report for 2016 chapter 2). Mr Conzato finally added that these reports are also discussed at the Council and currently the issue of disaggregation of data had been raised. The EU could assure Member States that also in the future there will be gender disaggregated data, though disaggregation for other criteria (e.g. by disability, age, etc.) was uncertain.

Conclusions: Participants took note of the information provided about the EU Development Policy and the information on the European consensus for development, including its focus, key components and domains of work. Participants were also informed about the results framework applied for measuring the results of cooperation and the changes that are forthcoming in this framework. It was highlighted that in order to feed the results framework with more qualitative information, the provision of disaggregated statistical data remains a significant challenge.

4. ASSESSMENTS OF STATISTICAL SYSTEMS AND DOMAINS4.1 Current round of assessments

Mr Galik (Eurostat) presented an update on the current round of assessments conducted in the enlargement and ENP countries. He mentioned that in the past years a number of different assessments such as global assessments (covering the ESCoP and selected statistical domains), light peer reviews and peer reviews (covering the ESCoP) as well as sector reviews for specific domains of statistics were implemented. In the enlargement countries global assessments were conducted in Albania, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Kosovo and Montenegro and in most of the countries a light peer review and/or peer review was implemented (Albania, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, Turkey). A number of enlargement countries were interested also in sector reviews on the labour force survey (Albania, Bosnia & Herzegovina), business statistics (Albania, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Montenegro and Serbia) and national accounts (the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia).

In the ENP region in all six ENP-East countries a global assessment was implemented and in the ENP-South region only in Tunisia such an assessment was conducted. Eurostat participated also in global assessments done in cooperation with EFTA and UNECE in Central Asian countries (Mongolia, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan). Light peer reviews and/or peer reviews were conducted in Armenia, Jordan and Palestine. In the ENP region sector reviews were also implemented on the labour force survey (Armenia, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Tunisia), business statistics (Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Palestine), tourism statistics (Armenia) and migration statistics (Armenia).

As there is continued interest of the countries in conducting assessments, a new round is planned in the coming two years both in the enlargement and ENP countries. Peer reviews will be conducted in the framework of IPA programme for Kosovo, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Albania, Serbia and Montenegro and in total 8 sector reviews are planned for the enlargement countries in the statistical domains of their choice. In the ENP region the following assessments will be implemented: a global assessment planned for Moldova, one peer review (country to be decided) and 5 sector reviews. A call for interest for sector reviews was launched with the ENP countries.

The final reports from the assessments and reviews are available on Eurostat's website. Eurostat periodically monitors the implementation of the recommendations from the assessments by means of dedicated follow-up questionnaires. Summary reports from the monitoring rounds are presented at the respective annual high level meetings for the enlargement and ENP-East countries.

Discussion

Mr Kaleta (Poland) inquired if there is any correlation between the topics selected for the meetings of the Statistics Panel and workshops and for the sector reviews in the ENP-East countries. He was also interested how the experts are selected for the workshops following the Statistics Panel meetings as the NSI is interested in sending its experts to those meetings.

Ms Junker (Eurostat) explained that the topics for the Statistics Panel meetings and for workshops are selected by Eurostat following suggestions made by the countries at the HLS meetings. The topics for sector reviews are proposed by individual countries according to their needs to review the situation in a specific domain of statistics with an objective to receive recommendations for further development of this domain. That is why in some cases the topics for the meetings and for the sector reviews might be similar.

For the Statistics Panel meetings Eurostat searches for experts among all interested Member States and invites those experts who have relevant and complementary experience. Some of those experts, who contributed most to the meetings, are also invited to the workshops following the Statistics Panel meetings.

Conclusions: Participants took note of the information about the global assessments, peer reviews and sector reviews (topics and countries) carried out in previous years as well as the ones planned to be implemented in the future in the enlargement and ENP countries.

4.2 Peer review in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia

Ms Mitevska (the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia) presented the process of the peer review that took place in February 2017 and covered all principles of the Code of Practice (CoP). Preparations for the peer review took long time, almost two years, but this was useful as it gave the State Statistical Office (SSO) time to prepare and publish documentation on internal procedures before the peer review took place. It resulted in a detailed analysis of the national statistical system (NSS) in view of production, dissemination, confidentiality issues,

quality aspects and many more. The SSO formed a working group divided in sub-groups, each of them in charge of several principles of the CoP. Some ONAs were closely involved during the preparatory phase and received assistance to fill in the light version of the self-assessment questionnaire (SAQ).

The visit to the SSO was conducted by two experts and a representative of Eurostat and lasted four days. Many staff members of the SSO were involved in the meetings ranging from the top management, the coordination team and junior staff. Staff of ONAs, representatives of main users, main providers of official statistics and the Statistical Council took part in the meetings according to the agenda. Two observers from the Kosovo Agency for Statistics attended part of the peer review as a preparation for the upcoming peer review in Kosovo.

A draft report was sent to the SSO by the experts within less than one month. The SSO is going to provide comments on the draft report and formulate improvement actions in response to the recommendations proposed by the experts.

Discussions

Ms Onur (Turkey) provided information about the pilot peer review conducted in Turkey in 2015. A total of 38 improvement actions had been defined based on the recommendations proposed, of which 10 are already completed. For monitoring progress in implementing the improvement actions, TurkStat has developed an on-line system, which can be shared with other enlargement countries upon request.

Mr Rrustemi (Kosovo) asked about the intensity of the preparations for the peer review and how long time before the visit of the experts the SAQ was provided. The Working Group spent on average 1-2 hours a day on peer review issues during the two years of preparation. The SAQ was sent to the experts around three weeks before the visit; however Mr Galik (Eurostat) added that normally the country has six weeks for filling in the questionnaires.

Conclusions: Participants took note of the information about the peer review of the SSO conducted in February 2017. The preparation of the peer review lasted almost 2 years and this was very useful as missing documentation on procedures could be prepared and published before the peer review took place. The peer review preparations were also used to intensively involve ONAs, to train them on the CoP, to help them filling in the SAQ and this was considered very helpful to improve coordination of the NSS. In addition, participants were informed that the expert team implemented the review in a very professional way and met with a wide range of users such as academics, media, international organisations, as well as with other stakeholders. A draft report has been received by SSO and once the report is finalised, the SSO will develop an action plan and start implementing it.

5. STATE OF PLAY OF ASSISTANCE PROGRAMMES5.1 IPA programmes

Ms Van der Zande (Eurostat) presented the principles governing the IPA (Instrument for Pre-Accession) multi-beneficiary programmes (MBP) for statistics, the state of play in the implementation of the IPA MBP 2014, the start of IPA MBP 2015 and the developments concerning the IPA MBP 2017.

The purpose of multi-beneficiary programmes in statistics is to support the beneficiary countries in aligning their present methodologies and output with the EU acquis in statistics and gradually integrating them into the European Statistical System. In addition, they target specifically at improving the overall availability of timely and comparable data. Concrete objectives are defined with a main focus on common topics and beneficiaries' needs.

Two types of implementation instruments are used to run these programmes: grants and a service contract. Grant contracts are signed with the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Turkey. The beneficiaries of the service contract are Albania, Bosnia & Herzegovina and Kosovo. These contracts have a similar structure with a view to support statistical projects and technical assistance (participation in working group meetings, study visits, training courses, traineeships etc.). The contractual and financial details of both IPA MBP 2014 and IPA MBP 2015 together with the list of the statistical projects can be found in the document MGSC/2017/10.

One important development in the IPA MBPs is an increased focus of the projects in several domains towards the implementation of full-scale surveys with a view to deliver compliant data. To this end it was decided to use the term "statistical projects" instead of "pilot projects". Another important element is the rationalisation of the set-up for projects. There will be fewer projects focusing more on data production and data delivery to Eurostat, compliant with the EU acquis, so as to ensure sustainability. Future IPA MBPs would be used to support new statistical areas.

Ms Van der Zande (Eurostat) also informed about the future IPA MBP 2017 currently under preparation. Finally 14 million € (instead of the planned 16 million €) were allocated by DG NEAR. The Financing Decision is expected mid-2017. The reduction was due to other emerging needs and was not related to the quality of the work performed under the statistical component of the programme. The signature of the contracts is expected during the 2nd half of 2018 and implementation is foreseen to take place from 1st half of 2019 until mid-2021.

Discussions

Ms Juul Hansen (Denmark) asked to clarify what is meant by "statistical projects" in multi-beneficiary programmes. Ms Juul Hansen also asked if it would be possible to share the Code of Principles in international cooperation adopted at the 2007 PGSC meeting which is referred to in the document MGSC/2017/10.

Ms Van der Zande (Eurostat) explained that "statistical projects" consist of external technical expertise on methodological statistical areas (i.e. STS, Tourism statistics etc.) on the one hand and of financial support offered to the beneficiary countries' work on these statistical areas on the other hand.

Ms Junker (Eurostat) informed that the Code of Principles can of course be shared.

Ms Fransen (the Netherlands) asked whether Eurostat foresees a possibility to divide the multi-beneficiary programmes/projects in different statistical areas so that different consortiums could apply for a specific statistical area.

Ms Junker (Eurostat) explained that Eurostat is not in favour of splitting a programme into different lots for several reasons. From previous experience, Eurostat knows that apart from the fact that this approach creates administrative burden and additional work, the approach bears a risk that not for all lots contractors could be found and as a consequence, no support would be provided in these domains to the beneficiary countries.

Ms Francoz (France) asked if private companies tendering for IPA MBPs are involving NSIs as consortium members. Ms Francoz (France) also informed that France has bilateral cooperation with some countries (i.e Serbia) and that it is interested to continue cooperation with these countries.

Ms Junker (Eurostat) indicated that indeed most of the tenderers are usually entering into a consortium with some NSIs of the MS. Eurostat never received an application from one NSI applying alone.

Conclusions: Participants took note of the current IPA MBP 2014 implementation and the start of IPA MBP 2015 in 2017. They were also informed on Eurostat's plans regarding future IPA MBPs and about the increased focus on data production and delivery to Eurostat. Participants asked to share the Code of Principles in international cooperation, mentioned in the document, with them.

5.2 Pan-African statistical programme and peer reviews in Africa

Ms Radermacher (Eurostat) presented the background, aims and four major pillars of the Pan-African Statistical programme (PAS). PAS activities are based on the African Charter of Statistics and the Strategy for Harmonised Statistics in Africa (SHaSA) and are coherent with the Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development and the African Union’s 2063 Agenda.

The PAS aims at improving the quality of statistics in Africa, transferring knowledge, building adequate production and dissemination capacities, and supporting cooperation within the African Statistical System.

The PAS has four pillars: data production, dissemination, quality, and training. In 2016, support, in the form of expert visits and trainings, has been provided in five priority domains: trade, national accounts, SDGs, migration and labour statistics. Direct support from experts to the Statistical Division of the AUC has also been provided, in particular on the setting up of the AU Statistical Institute.

A High Level Seminar took place in Tanzania in November 2016 to discuss the methodology for peer reviews in Africa in the period 2017-2019 with representatives of some African NSIs. Eurostat’s Snapshot tool (its institutional part) will be used as self-assessment questionnaire.

Ms Radermacher (Eurostat) concluded her presentation by inviting interested participants to contact Eurostat A3 to subscribe to the PAS Newsletter. This will allow receiving latest information on the activities rolled out under the PAS programme.

Discussions

Ms Gandolfo (Italy) asked if the peer reviews in Africa will be conducted on a voluntary basis and if the coordination role will be included in this round of peer reviews.

Ms Radermacher clarified that, although peer reviews are voluntary, it was agreed that the African Union Commission will play a coordination role, will issue a call for volunteering countries and will also encourage its Member States to undergo such exercises. Ms Junker (Eurostat) added that coordination of the national statistical system is not addressed by a specific questionnaire, like in the case of ESS peer reviews, but is part of the questions that are asked to the countries during the visits.

Ms Pedersen (Norway) enquired about which will be the first country to undergo such an exercise.

Ms Radermacher replied that, at present, it is not known which African country will be the first to undergo a peer review.

Ms Fransen (Netherlands) mentioned that Statistics Netherlands is member of the consortium that implements the Pan-African Statistical programme (PAS) and would like some clarifications about the roles of Eurostat and of the consortium in initiating activities for this programme. In addition, she enquired if the two missions on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) planned for 2017 will cover a specific topic or a certain region/country, and about the coordination between different financing partners supporting statistical activities in the African countries.

Ms Radermacher mentioned that the consortium implementing the PAS is under the lead of Expertise France. During regular missions, the experts provided by Expertise France, identified specific needs of the African Union Commission (AUC). Based on this analysis, Eurostat collaborated with Expertise France and the Statistical Division of the AUC to define actions that will address these needs and included these actions in a work programme. For the implementation of this work programme, the expertise of the consortium members might be envisaged. For example, the two missions on SDGs planned for 2017 were included in the work programme following the needs expressed by the Statistics Division of the AUC for training in this area. However, the work programme is handled in a sufficiently flexible way to enable emerging priorities to be addressed. Regarding the coordination of different donors, Ms Radermacher explained that the PAS tries to be complementary to other actions that are implemented in Africa. The African Union Commission (AUC), as beneficiary or coordinator of different actions to support the African Statistical System is aware of this activities and ensures complementarity of different actions.

Ms Junker (Eurostat) added that Eurostat is the Contracting Authority and defines, together with the AUC, the activities to be implemented by Expertise France in the areas that have been defined as priorities.

Conclusions: Participants took note of the information provided on state of play of the Pan-African Statistics programme for the development of the African Statistical System after its first year of implementation and inquired about the way peer reviews are implemented within the PAS, the sharing of work and responsibilities between Eurostat and the consortium as well as about some specific types of activities. Participants were informed about the partnership between Eurostat and the Statistics Division of the African Union Commission (AUC) in defining all activities of the PAS as well as the coordination of activities, mainly through working on a limited number of statistical domains (labour statistics, migration statistics, trade statistics, national accounts and SDGs).

5.3 Statistical capacity building in the ENP-South

Mr Schivazappa (Eurostat) presented the progress made during the past year in the implementation of the Medstat IV programme as well all other activities organised by Eurostat for the ENP-South countries.

Medstat IV, starting in January 2016 for a period of 40 months, is similar to the previous cooperation programmes in the ENP-South region. It aims at promoting evidence-based decision making and fostering democratic development by improving the availability and visibility of statistical data. Medstat IV is supporting the work of the Working Groups (WG), set up in 2013, covering six thematic areas (business register and business statistics, trade and Balance of Payments, energy, transport, migration and labour market) and will develop activities on three cross-cutting topics (training, visibility, and gender statistics where applicable). The main activities of the WGs for the last year were presented as follows:

Business registers and business statistics (WG led by Palestine and Tunisia): Only half of the ENP-South countries have a statistical business register worthy of the name from which to draw samples for business surveys. Thus, it has been decided that an important part of the work programme is to take stock of the situation in each country, to identify transferable best practices, to translate the glossary and other parts of the UN guidelines for business registers into Arabic and to prepare material that can be used by the NSIs to raise awareness of the need for a national statistical business register in their country. However, the WG will not focus only on registers, but will also work on improving the production of business statistics, including the informal sector and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Two meetings

have been held so far: a WG meeting (Istanbul, July 2016) and a Workshop on business register (Istanbul, Dec. 2016);

Energy: The production of energy efficiency indicators remains very heterogeneous across the region with different indicators produced according to different methodologies from one partner country to the other. In particular, further work is needed on the sections of the balances concerning renewable energy and the breakdown of final energy consumption by sector. Therefore, the priority topics agreed for the Energy WG are: 1) continuous improvement of energy balances, 2) implementing surveys and using other sources of data on energy consumption by sector, and 3) producing harmonised energy efficiency indicators and sustainable development indicators. Each of these topics is led by a different country: Egypt is leading on Energy balances, Morocco on final energy consumption, and Tunisia on Energy indicators. Two meetings have been held so far: a meeting with the International Energy Agency (IEA) and Union for the Mediterranean (UfM) (Paris, June 2016) and a workshop on energy balances with IEA (Athens, Oct. 2016);

Labour market: The coordination of the Euro-Med WG on Labour Statistics is under the responsibility of Tunisia as lead country. The WG decided to create sub-groups to work in more detail on some of the proposed topics. On a voluntary basis, the countries joined the various sub-groups as follows: sub-group on Methodological compendium of the national LFS methodologies (Tunisia and Lebanon); sub-group on Comparative analysis on the participation/integration of women in the labour market (Algeria, Egypt, Morocco, and Palestine); sub-group on mismatch between labour supply and demand (Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco and Israel); sub-group on SDG Indicators (Morocco and Tunisia); handbook on decent work (Israel). One of the main challenges for the Labour Statistics WG is the implementation of the new recommendations of the 19th International Conference of Labour Statisticians (ICLS). The first major activity was a regional workshop on the implementation of those resolutions in national operations, held back-to-back with the WG meeting in Rome, Italy in July 2016.

Migration: Several international organizations that are important users of migration statistics are involved in the work of the WG, the World Bank, UNHCR, IMO, ILO, UNFPA and the League of Arab States. The Work programme for the WG, led by Lebanon, distinguishes three main components: a) Support to Med-HIMS; b) other activities linked to the gathering and the analysis of other potential sources of information on migration, in particular the exploitation of administrative data, and c) possible addition of a migration module to other surveys, such as the Labour Force Survey. A meeting of the WG took place in Geneva, Switzerland in May 2016, back-to-back with the Eurostat/I+UNECE meeting.

Trade and Balance of Payments (BoP): In recent years, significant changes have occurred in the international recommendations related to the sector of Trade and Balance of Payments Statistics (i.e. the revised IMTS-2010 Concepts and definitions (UNSD); the 6th Edition of the Balance of Payments Manual (IMF); the Manual on Statistics of International Trade in Services (MSITS 2010)), that have to be taken into account in the work programme of the WG, led by Morocco. Therefore, the WG is focusing its work on the production of new indicators according to the new recommendations; on the use of surveys to complement traditional methods of data collection, such as customs data; the coherence and passage between foreign trade and Balance of payments. Synergies with other thematic sectors (in particular with Transport statistics, business registers and Energy statistics) is sought in order to improve the coherence of data production in the different sectors. Two meetings have been held so far: a WG meeting and a workshop on trade in goods with UN (Lisbon, July 2016) and a workshop on Balance of Payments with the IMF (Brussels, December 2016).

Transport: This Working Group, led by Morocco, has a solid base to build on, and has adopted a work programme which focuses on the production of road passenger and road freight transport statistics, on the production of geo-referenced statistics on air and sea transport; development and production of new transport performance indicators, in relation to the new Sustainable Development Goals adopted by the United Nations. Two meetings have been held so far: a WG meeting back-to-back with a workshop on the use of big data (Rome, 13-14 July 2016) and a workshop on the development of a manual on road freight transport statistics, adapted to the characteristics of the transport and statistical systems of the ENP South countries (Brussels, 13-14 December 2016). The next activity is a Joint regional Workshop on the development and production of new transport and energy performance indicators (planned in Brussels on 28-30 March 2017).

Outside the Medstat IV programme, Eurostat is leading the Quality WG which has produced, together with the countries of the region, a regional Statistics Code of Practice; an associated quality assurance framework and a self-assessment questionnaire have been developed; these tools were used (ex. the peer review in Jordan in February 2017) and will be used for statistical assessments in the ENP-South countries.

Mr Schivazappa concluded his intervention by listing the training courses that Eurostat offered so far to the ENP South countries and those that are planned for 2017. These are not part of the Medstat IV programme.

Conclusions: Participants took note of the progress in the MEDSTAT IV programme and of Eurostat's work on Quality and Training. Participants asked to be better and earlier informed about activities taking place within the framework of the programme and some of them demonstrated interest to increase their involvement. This involvement could translate into the provision of (ad-hoc) expertise for statistical domains as well as participation in the Forum meeting. Participants were asked to further reflect on how the provision of ad-hoc advice could materialise in practice.

5.4 Statistical capacity building in the ENP-East

Mr Skaskevitch (Eurostat) presented an overview of assistance projects and activities in statistics implemented by Eurostat for the ENP-East countries. He briefly referred to the political background mentioning the review of the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) and the Eastern Partnership Initiative operating through 4 thematic platforms. This broad political context was the background for developing a 'Strategy for Statistical Cooperation in the ENP-East Region 2014-2020' which constitutes a framework for all statistical cooperation activities addressed to the ENP-East countries. Within this framework Eurostat implements a number of activities (such as global assessments, peer reviews, sectoral reviews), organises annual High Level Seminars for the top management of the NSIs of the Eastern European, Caucasus and Central Asia (EECCA) countries, conducts training courses, organises Statistics Panel meetings and workshops on specific topics, collects and disseminates data on the ENP-East region and provides technical advice on Twinning projects and TAIEX missions upon request. As much as possible the other five countries (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan) and Mongolia are invited to participate in the activities for the ENP East countries. The purpose of the activities is to strengthen the institutional capacity of NSIs by providing technical assistance and promoting the ESCoP and related quality management frameworks as well as support to implement European standards in statistics. Eurostat offers advice to the ENP-East countries on the implementation of the generic law on official statistics and supports them in developing SDG indicators for monitoring the SDGs.

Mr Skaskevitch stated that the activities have been implemented mainly via services contracts with different companies. The work, especially in the framework of the Statistics Panel made it evident there is a need for a more structured regional programme in statistics for the ENP-East countries to cater for the synergies and similarities, economies of scale and better coordination of efforts of all stakeholders. Thus, based on funding from DG NEAR, Eurostat intends to launch a regional programme in statistics with the objective to further strengthen NSIs and enhance their institutional environment by capacity building and support to the production of statistics. The programme will have a regional and a national focus to accommodate regional needs and the needs of individual countries. It is planned to start in late 2018, will last for 3 years and will have a total budget of 5 million €.

Discussion

Mr Raupach (Germany) requested more detailed information on the practical arrangements for the implementation of the regional programme and its main objectives. He mentioned that the NSI is interested in the cooperation with the EECCA countries and hence, in the programme.

Ms Junker (Eurostat) explained that the regional programme is at the stage of planning. A standard procedure for such programmes will be applied. Once the Commission approval for the scope of activities and budget is obtained, there will be a call for tenders. Thus, no detailed information could be made available. The main overall objective of the programme is to obtain more and better quality data at the regional and national level by strengthening the capacity of national statistical offices. The global assessments conducted for those countries revealed some weaknesses of those systems and this information, together with relevant policy objectives will be taken into account when setting up the programme.

Ms Petrova (Bulgaria) requested Eurostat to make available for the member states (MS) an overall plan for activities and events with the countries, so that the MS are informed well in advance of various initiatives of Eurostat. In response to this request, Ms Junker (Eurostat) mentioned that certain information is available in the quarterly newsletters and a list of events is provided during the MGSC meetings.

Conclusions: Participants took note of the broad political context, which inspires Eurostat’s cooperation activities in the ENP-East region (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine) and supports the implementation of the strategy for the years 2014-2020. Eurostat's cooperation activities in the region are so far limited to the organization of high level seminars, workshops, training courses and panel meetings. However, a regional statistical cooperation programme is being planned and participants were informed about the main objective of the forthcoming programme and its modalities for implementation. Participants also asked to consider the involvement of NSIs from Central Asia as much as it is possible in the given context.

6. NSI PARTICIPATION IN INTERNATIONAL TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE ACTIVITIES; ADVANTAGES AND CHALLANGES OF 'PUBLIC PARTNERSHIPS'

6.1 EU instruments of funding and technical assistance

Ms Gerdziunaite (Eurostat) presented some of the available EU funding instruments for statistical cooperation, such as TAIEX, Twinning projects, grants and service contracts, and

conditions for applying to these instruments. Due to the time shortage, TAIEX and grants were not presented.

All these instruments (including TAIEX and grants) are funded by the relevant cooperation instruments – the Instrument for Pre-Accession (IPA), the European Neighbourhood Instrument (ENI) or the Development Cooperation Instrument (DCI).

Twinning projects bring together public sector expertise from EU Member States and beneficiary countries with the aim of achieving concrete mandatory results through peer to peer activities. These projects usually have a duration of 18-24 months. A lighter and more flexible version is a Twinning light project. Twinning projects are allocated through competitive procedures and can consist of different components such as transfer of know-how, study visits, trainings. However if any survey needs to be organised, its costs should be covered by the beneficiary country. Contents, results and budget are fixed from the start. A Twinning project is managed by a Member State Twinning partner and implemented through a Resident Twinning Advisor (RTA) and short term experts.

Another instrument of EU cooperation is a service contract (coming out of a call for tender). Tenders for IPA and ENI assistance are based on project requirements agreed between the Commission and the beneficiary countries and can be used for national and regional cooperation programmes. Tenders are allocated on the basis of a competitive procedure and can include different elements such as transfer of know-how, study visits, trainings as well as, contrary to Twinning projects, the costs of surveys. Compared to Twinning, service contracts can be slightly more flexible in terms of content and budget distribution; they are managed by a contractor and implemented through key experts and short term experts.

Ms Gerdziunaite (Eurostat) also listed some of the limitations of these instruments. These are limitations from the perspective of the beneficiary and from the perspective of EU as the provider of the assistance.

For service contracts the limitations are: project management is done by a private contractor; the number of potential bidders could be low; risk of badly performing companies; limited possibilities to influence the choice of the non-key experts by the company; no possibility to influence the involvement of the consortium partners; profit is included into the price, etc. However, it is a relatively flexible instrument.

Limitations of the Twinning instrument are: implementation is usually intensive; costs of surveys are not covered; restricted number of areas can be covered; difficulty to find twinning partners; very few MS have the structures in place to implement a twinning; no possibility to influence the involvement of the consortium partners, etc. However it may enable long lasting partnership between the MS and partner countries.

Conclusions: Participants took note of the various EU instruments for funding and providing technical assistance to beneficiary countries as well as their advantages and disadvantages. They were informed about the practical aspects of participation in Twinning projects, in contracts and grants as expertise provider and discussed the operational aspects and arrangements of being involved in these different modes of cooperation. Participants raised the issue of moving from assistance for solely the production of statistics towards assistance for the institutional set-up of NSIs.

6.2 Twinning projects

Ms Juul Hansen (Denmark) presented the practical aspects of participation in Twinning projects as expertise provider. She presented the International Consulting Unit, which is

responsible for statistical capacity building projects, developing project proposals and contracts, coordinating and managing project implementation, reporting and searching for new project opportunities. She stressed that it is very important to get support from the other units as well as from the top management.

For the implementation of the Twinning projects a number of people are involved - short-term experts, consortium partners and individual experts, the Resident Twinning Adviser (RTA), a project assistant and interpreter/s, a project leader, a financial controller, etc.

It is very important to find good short term experts, who have expertise, are interested in the project and able to disseminate their knowledge to the beneficiaries. After identifying the experts, it is necessary to get management approval, which is sometimes challenging. The selected short term experts are trained, provided with project guides and guides to International Consulting and participate in meetings to get information about the course of the project and provide feedback. An annual satisfaction survey is performed for the staff involved in cooperation projects and the results show that experts are also learning from this experience.

Consortium partners are very important for providing qualified experts for the successful implementation of the Twinning project. The difficulty is that some NSIs cannot sign inter-institutional cooperation agreements, and consequently contracts should be signed with individual experts.

The Resident Twinning Adviser (RTA) plays key role in the project. Usually the adviser is selected from the staff of the statistical office and the selected person signs a specific contract with Statistics Denmark for the duration of the RTA position. These types of contracts are regulated by Danish law. There are some practical issues which have to be arranged before the RTA can start working - tax issues, health insurance, settling of RTA in the beneficiary country, etc. The RTA receives training on practicalities and project methodology. During project implementation, there is constant cooperation between the RTA and the International Consulting Unit. Six months before the finalisation of the project, the RTAs are asked to express their interest in future work, in order to find a suitable position back in Statistics Denmark.

The project assistant and interpreter/s are selected via procurement procedures and it is important to build up a team spirit with these people, while project leaders usually come from the International Cooperation Unit. Ms Juul Hansen (Denmark) stressed that it is important to consider the requirements for the project leader and chose a person able to implement practical work.

Project leaders have overall responsibility for the project (managing resources, meeting the needs of beneficiaries, etc.). For this reason, they need to work in close cooperation with the RTA, the project team, consortium partners, beneficiary institutions, the European Union Delegations (EUD), the local ministry responsible for Twinning and other stakeholders.

Twinning is in principle non-profit-based and MS partner should contribute to the project. Statistics Denmark has calculated that their usual contribution to the Twinning projects is about 15%. Ms Juul Hansen (Denmark) mentioned, that Statistics Denmark developed an internal financial reporting system, where it registers all indirect costs (time, staff involvement in the project) and direct costs (those reimbursed by the Twinning budget and those which are not). It is important to keep track of the project budget and try to save money for example on booking cheaper flight tickets. These saving can be used for additional project activities.

Ms Juul Hansen (Denmark) stressed that before getting involved in the Twinning project, it is important to know that there are some costs which are not covered by the project budget – these could be office supplies, laptops, heaters, access to wifi, banking fees, etc. Some working time spent on Twinning projects is also not covered by the project budget, such as preparation for the project, traveling time, report writing, etc. She also mentioned that from her experience it is useful to open a local bank account in the beneficiary country for local transactions.

Statistics Denmark has a website for each of its projects, where all important information and quarterly newsletters are published. All project documents are kept for seven years.

Ms Juul Hansen (Denmark) informed the participants that the Twinning instrument is currently being significantly revised. She also stressed that although it may look like a complicated procedure, in reality it is not very difficult, as long as the office organises itself properly.

Discussion

Mr Kaleta (Poland) enquired whether project leaders in the International Consulting Unit and project leaders in the Twinning projects are the same. And if so, what their background expertise is. He also asked why the International Consulting Unit is placed outside the International Cooperation Department and whether the International Consulting Unit is dealing with other international cooperation activities, such as Eurostat grants.

Ms Juul Hansen (Denmark) mentioned that the project leaders in the International Consulting Unit are usually also project leaders in the Twinning projects. However sometimes the requirements for the project leader in the Twinning project description are very high and it is difficult to find persons from inside the NSI who meet these requirements. She also explained that the International Consulting Unit is separated from the International Cooperation Unit, which is working on other international cooperation activities. Such setup requires a lot of coordination, especially regarding activities related to SDGs. The International Consulting Unit does not deal with other EU grants, only with those related to capacity building.

Ms Hocevar (Slovenia) confirmed that there are significant changes envisaged in the revised Twinning instrument.

Ms Francoz (France) stressed that it is quite heavy for the office to prepare a Twinning project and it is not easy to find a Resident Twinning Adviser, but at the same time it is a very interesting experience to collaborate with other MS and share experience with partners and beneficiaries. She considered Twinning a very useful instrument.

Ms Šimienė (Lithuania) thanked Statistics Denmark for involving them in the Twinning projects as partners and stressed that this is a good example of cooperation among MS.

Ms Djordjevic (Austria) enquired about the replacement of the people selected as Resident Twinning Adviser and whether project leaders are hired only for the duration of the project or they are integrated in the statistical office after the project ends. She also enquired about how Statistics Denmark justifies the mentioned 15% contribution to the Twinning project in its budget.

Ms Juul Hansen (Denmark) answered that Statistics Denmark always use RTA from the in-house and they use internal rotation to fill in the post of the person selected for RTA. She explained that some sort of financial contribution is a requirement from the Twinning instrument. .

6.3 Service contract/grant

Ms Gandolfo (Italy) presented the perspective of the NSIs prepared in cooperation with Germany, Denmark, France and the Netherlands. She explained that the increasing need for statistics to better respond to user needs also creates new challenges for NSIs in international cooperation. Ms Gandolfo reminded that the regional roadmap drawn up by UN Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) states that statistical capacity building is a medium to long term project, where reinforcing statistical governance should be in the focus besides statistical production. She mentioned that short projects often do not allow sufficient time to go deep into the subject-matter, but focus on concrete, time-bound, achievable results. They also run the risk of not allowing the beneficiaries to acquire sustainable capacity. Furthermore, the strict rules governing service contracts do not make it possible for NSIs to bid unless as part of a consortium due to the lack of logistical and organisational capacity that would be required. On the side of individual experts, sometimes the sheer amount of working days required by some projects is a deterring factor, as NSI staff has to perform the daily work as well.

As a possible solution to these issues, Ms Gandolfo proposed to promote and enhance partnership among the NSIs as a main step. Since expertise is already available, NSIs could join forces (perhaps as many as 10 NSIs even) to form a consortium and apply for a contract. Meanwhile, Eurostat should cooperate more with NSIs and design their projects following a multi-annual approach. More specifically, she proposed to introduce a consultation mechanism within the MGSC to collect the needs and strategic elements to be included in the tender specifications. More projects should be promoted based on an institution-to-institution approach, such as seen in twinning projects. The direct involvement of NSIs should be also promoted (or regulated) by requesting that most of the expert working days should come from them. Finally, Ms Gandolfo proposed that technical assistance should be financed through grant agreements, while logistics could be subject to service contracts.

Discussion

Several countries supported the presentation and joined in saying that NSI experts should be more involved in the projects, and that the number of working days foreseen for some projects should be more carefully reflected upon, as sometimes they are unrealistic hence not allowing NSI experts to work on them.

Ms Fransen (the Netherlands) mentioned that due to the current division between price and quality, the lowest bidder usually wins, meaning that countries with a higher price level can't compete. Ms Junker (Eurostat) reacted that in IPA tenders the usual ratio is 70% to 30% in favour of the technical proposal, so the price has a lower impact: and as quality has a price, it is not at all certain that the offer with the lowest price will win.

Ms Junker went on to add that while consulting NSIs in the preparation phase of contracts would be welcome, it is simply not possible as that would be considered giving pre-access to some potential bidders and distorting competition. Regarding the bilateral actions, she mentioned that due to the regional nature of the programme Eurostat cannot include too many institution-to-institution type activities. She proposed to set up a brainstorming session to continue discussion on this issue.

Regarding direct involvement of NSI experts, Ms Junker explained that this cannot be explicitly stated in the tender, but fee calculations are done in the contracting phase and based on quality considerations. However, in the end the expert fee is the result of negotiations between the contractor and the expert/the office.

Both Ms Simiene (Lithuania) and Ms Francoz (France) raised the issue that some companies only want to use the image of the NSIs to win the tender, then the company contracts other, cheaper experts. Ms Junker (Eurostat) responded by mentioning that the number of NSIs present in the consortium is not a criterion for selection, only the content of the offer and the key experts are evaluated in the award phase.

Ms Gandolfo (Italy) proposed to set up a reflection group or task force to commonly reflect about this problem and try to come up with a solution. Ms Pál (Hungary) supported this idea, adding that the beneficiaries should also be invited to this group.

Conclusions: Participants discussed the challenges which NSIs encounter in technical cooperation activities, their experiences with EU-funded capacity building projects and agreed that the following measures will be taken to ensure their involvement in the EU-funded technical assistance projects:

- Member States should be involved in strategic discussions, as was done for the adoption of the strategy for statistical cooperation with the enlargement and ENP countries for the period 2014—2020;

- Member States should signal to Eurostat their interest in providing assistance in specific statistical domains, based on the list of projects in IPA 2014 and 2015, in the Medstat IV programme and in the forthcoming ENP East programme, so that Eurostat can take this interest into account when expertise is sought for ad-hoc consultations and/or projects;

- Eurostat will organise a brainstorming with interested Member States to reflect and discuss on the set-up desired by the Member States, on what other involvement could be guaranteed on strategic level, on the balance between the desire to be involved and the available resources and how to evaluate the provided expertise. Such a brainstorming would be possible back-to-back with the ESSC meeting, the next possible occasion being most likely the ESSC meeting in November 2017.

7. ROUNDTABLE Information from the Member States was disseminated in a document provided for the meeting

8. INFORMATION ABOUT LATEST DEVELOPMENTS IN THE ESS AND EUROSTAT

Mr Everaers (Eurostat) presented recent developments in the European Union, the global statistical system, the European Statistical System (ESS) and Eurostat.

At the global level, the "post truth" society and use of alternative facts, the growing patriotism in Europe, globalisation as a consequence of the discussions with the US on international trade agreements and SDGs are being widely discussed. These discussions show that quality of statistics as well as independence and impartiality of information have become very important issues. In the coming year, many conferences of international organisations will address ways of dealing with "post truth" and alternative pieces of information that are being presented as "real facts" in the framework of discussions on as "quality" and "labelling". These discussions are also linked to the use of administrative sources and big data which statisticians cannot directly influence, because those pieces of information primarily exist for other purposes. In this context, ways of processing such sources and of

communicating are becoming very important. The ESS.VIP project DIGICOM is dealing with ways of communicating official statistics and of establishing an official statistics' position in society and showing it provides a real truth as opposed to "post truth" alternative facts.

In the European Union statistics are important for the European Commission's policies, but statistics will also be important for the Summit of 25 March 2017 in Rome. The summit on the 60 years' celebration of the EU presents an occasion for reflecting on the future of the EU, on the basis of the Commission's White Paper on the Future of Europe. This document will kick-off the discussions in the next half year on the different directions that the EU may take and provides the following five possible scenarios to help these reflections:

1) Carry on as before, but now with 27 Member States;2) Deal only with single market issues, but what is comprised in the single market

remains to be defined;3) Work in an EU of different speeds, like for example the current EMU in which a

limited number of Member States are cooperating more closely;4) Do less more efficiently; focus on certain policies and go deeper there;5) Do much more together and build a closer Europe, including for instance defence.

Of course, combinations of scenarios may come out. Five papers will be produced by September/October 2017 in preparation of the Summit of December 2017 in which the Heads of State will decide on the future EU model. These five papers will focus on: 1. Developing the social dimension of Europe; 2. Deepening the economic and monetary union; 3. Harnessing globalisation; 4. The future of Europe's defence; 5. The future of Europe's finances.

Mr Everaers explained that this will have an impact on cooperation. These discussions and their outcome will for instance feed into the next multiannual financial framework (2021-2025) and, hence, on the way the EU cooperates with the rest of the World. The single market option may lead to funding reductions and have an important impact on the EU's common foreign policy. More focus on defence would have a positive impact on the Western Balkan region. During the next 12 months, the EU will be at a very important crossroad affecting its own future as well as its relations with the World, including the EU's enlargement policy.

In addition, the White Paper influences the European Statistical Programme (ESP) beyond 2020. The ESP 2018-2020 which is an extension of the ESP 2013-2017 aligning it to the multiannual financial framework of the Commission, has passed the Commission, it is being discussed with the European Council and the European Parliament and expected to be approved by the summer of 2017. This programme includes 25 million € more to work on globalisation effects impacting our statistics where for instance a multinational firm's headquarter may have a large impact on a country's GDP because of its large financial transactions, on the Energy Union, on migrants and refugees and their effect on our economies, on the collaborative economies providing a grey type of economy work and on modernisation. It does not affect the sub-delegated credits used for statistical cooperation. Statistical cooperation is not impacted by this ESP and, regarding the countries outside Europe and the ENP, the three-pillar approach consisting of support for regional cooperation, the use of generic tools (such as Eretes, Eurotrace and SDMX), and quality through the use of the Code of Practice (CoP) continues. The legal process for the ESP programmes takes about 2 to 2.5 years and this is why, on 23 and 24 March 2017, the ESS' top management will already be reflecting on the elements to be taken into the ESP 2021-2025 from the perspective of modernisation, but also from the perspective of production. A small part of this

ESP will be on statistical cooperation and this topic will therefore be included in the agendas of the next PGSC and MGSC meetings.

Eurostat is also dealing with three other important legal files that are resulting from the discussions in 2009/2010 on the need for a leaner legal framework. The ESS is built around some 350 legal acts that have been established over the years and consist of very detailed information on the various statistics. To better streamline this wealth of isolated, detailed legal acts and facilitate their legal adoption process, the ESS agreed to move towards legal frameworks in which the European Parliament and Council decide on the main elements, the "what", and the experts for statistics decide via the Commission on the details of the "how". This is how the three framework regulations integrating business statistics, social statistics and agriculture statistics were developed. These files are currently in the Council and it is hoped to have them adopted by the end of 2017. However, this deadline is indicative, because the three frameworks are rather complex not only representing a decision on their content, but also on the decision-making responsibilities in delegated and implementing acts. The adoption of the three framework regulations will be reflected in the size of the Statistical requirements compendium which will become "lighter" when comprising just three framework regulations instead of the set of old, to be repealed regulations.

Mr Everaers continued by providing his impressions of the 2017 United Nations Statistical Committee (UNSC) meeting. It focussed mainly on the sustainable development goals (SDGs) and in particular on the approval of the indicators' list. Whereas in 2016 there was a provisional approval, this year's meeting resulted in a formal approval of the indicators' list that can be monitored and reported on. Many countries appreciated how the Inter-agency and Expert Group on Sustainable Development Goal Indicators (IAEG-SDGs) and the High-level Group (HLG) have been working together over the last year to define the indicators' groups (tier I, II and III) and organise the entire process of monitoring, reporting and capacity building. Eurostat used this occasion to organise a number of side meetings in which Mr Everaers discussed with the enlargement, ENP South, ENP East countries and other regions to update on cooperation activities and focus on a few very specific questions.

Mr Everaers also reported on the Conference on open data held on the day before the UNSC meeting showing again the growing interest for sharing data to reduce burden. Interoperability and confidentiality are becoming important issues in sharing data between National Statistical Institutes and data providers.

Furthermore, at the first UN World Data Forum that took place in January 2017 in Cape Town, gathering statistical offices with other organisations working with data, such as NGOs and private partners, these issues were also discussed. The conference was very rich and provided many new ideas on the use and reuse of data. The next forum of November 2018 in the United Arab Emirates is expected to become even more important, because statistics is at a crossroad, gradually moving from traditional surveys to the use of administrative and other sources, such as big data for which public-private partnerships will have to be established.

Mr Everaers also briefly informed the delegates of the selection procedure for a new Director-General of Eurostat and that Ms Mariana Kotzeva would be Eurostat's Acting Director-General until the appointment of a new Director-General. No major organisational changes are expected during this period.

Finally, Mr Everaers announced the launch of the technical coordination group (TCG) meetings with the enlargement countries to prepare the 2021 population censuses and discuss their methodologies and contents. The first of these meetings will be hosted in Hungary and supported by two Member States' experts, Eric Schulte from the Netherlands and Jean-Michel

Durr from France. In the course of these meetings Eurostat may call on other Member States' expertise to support this process.

Discussion

Upon an enquiry by Mr Wild (DG NEAR) whether any agreements had already been established with private big data providers, Mr Everaers explained that INSEE already signed a contract with France Orange on using telecom data and CBS Netherlands concluded one or two contracts with big data providers in the field of telecommunications and transport measuring. Those contracts are dealing with exploring the modalities. Other countries may also have some isolated contracts in place and the European level is currently only piloting.

Conclusions: Participants took note of the recent developments on the global level, in the ESS and Eurostat, such as the consequences of the Commissions' White Paper on the Future of Europe on the programmes in statistics (the European Statistical Programme beyond 2020) and the enlargement process, the ESP extension 2018-2020 and other framework regulations. Participants were also informed about the First United Nations World Data Forum and noted that Eurostat will launch a technical coordination group for the forthcoming population census in the enlargement countries.

9. REGIONAL COOPERATION AND COORDINATION OF DONORS

9.1 Donor coordination and the result of 2017 donor survey

Mr Schivazappa and Mr Andersen (Eurostat) presented the results of the 2017 donor coordination survey. It included projects in the area of statistics, completed or ongoing between 1 January 2016 and 31 March 2017, and all planned projects starting from 2017 in the enlargement, ENP and Central Asian countries. For this report, Eurostat implemented a number of innovations: For the first time, an online questionnaire was used to collect the information on projects from donors and beneficiaries. As requested by some Member States in the past, a possibility to submit information on projects they facilitated as implementing agencies was introduced. A functional Excel document was designed to replace a static listing of projects. Finally, data processing has been enhanced.

The response rate decreased compared to the last year and for donors it was 42%, whereas most of the beneficiary countries responded. The number of regional projects (implemented in more than one country) increased by 34% and by 25% for national projects. 83 activities of implementing agencies have been reported. The total volume for all reported statistical projects amounted to 246 million €, of which, 161 million € was dedicated to ongoing projects. The EU remained the biggest donor, except in Central Asia, where the World Bank keeps the lead.

Discussion

Mr Rothen (Switzerland) explained that due the need to coordinate the contributions from the national administration, an extended deadline for contributions as well as the opportunity to report in excel format (in addition to the web questionnaire) would be appreciated. The donor survey report is used in contact with countries to get an overview of activities.

Ms Mitevska (the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia) considered the web questionnaire an improvement of the reporting format, and uses the donor survey to establish an overview of activities on both national and international level, and could use it to identify donors or implementing agencies.

Ms Ms Pal (Hungary) and Ms Juul Hansen (Denmark) appreciated the format of reporting to the donor survey as well as the report itself, and asked to clarify whether the questionnaire for donors or implementing agencies should be provided.

Ms Pellicciotti (Italy) found the donor survey a useful tool and appreciated the web questionnaire. Italy reported on both activities implemented as well as national donor institutions, and for future reporting a centralised reporting from Italy was desirable.

Ms Francoz (France) considered the web questionnaire an improvement of the reporting, and the donor survey an important instrument in cooperation management.

Mr Bood (Sweden) informed that Statistics Sweden is also an implementing agency, although Sweden is only listed as a donor in the results.

Mr Rrustemi (Kosovo) also supported the introduction of the web questionnaire, and considered the donor survey an instrument for discussions with national authorities on support in different areas of statistics, and for internal measurement of progress in implementing projects.

Ms Santos (Portugal) considered the introduction of separate reporting for implementing agencies actually reduced the reporting burden in their case, and appreciated if reporting in the excel questionnaire was given as a complementary tool to report.

Mr Andersen and Mr Schivazappa (Eurostat) clarified that although the web questionnaire was preferred, optional reporting via the old questionnaire was still acceptable. Furthermore, the introduction of the web questionnaire enables also multiple reports by country or donor institution.

Ms Junker (Eurostat) explained that the reporting of activities implemented was added to allow more visibility for countries that were not really a donor but still contribute to the implementation of activities funded by other donors, such as hosting study visits or organising workshops. Hence, this form of assistance should be reported in the dedicated questionnaire for implementing agencies, by countries or institutions that are not primarily donor institutions.

Conclusions: Participants took note of the results from the donor survey and the improvements introduced in the 2017 edition, such as the web survey and the additional questionnaire for implementing agencies. The web survey eased the work of the NSIs but for other national authorities the excel questionnaire provided a better and easier-to-handle format. Participants were pleased with the additional information provided on the activities of the implementing agencies and appreciated that this information is now more visible in the results of the donor survey. In this context Eurostat clarified the difference in concept between donor and implementing agency.

All countries were asked to check the information in the report and to provide comments by end of April 2017, with a view to finalise the report by June 2017.

More time to respond to the questionnaire will be given starting from the next survey to increase the response rate.

9.2 Regional cooperation and projects

Mr Täube (EFTA statistical office) provided an overview of the role and organisation of EFTA in general as well as the EFTA statistical office and the cooperation activities in statistics by region. Its cooperation activities range from Global assessments / Peer Reviews

to technical support in selected statistical areas, which in 2016 and 2017 included survey sampling, price statistics and statistical indicators. The form of cooperation is usually to co-finance participation of beneficiaries in seminars, conferences and training courses. EFTA's cooperation activities cover the enlargement countries, ENP and Central Asian countries as well as Mongolia.

Mr Bood (Sweden) presented how Statistics Sweden implements activities funded by the Swedish international development agency (Sida) through a framework agreement between the two institutions. Provision of long term advisors stationed in the NSIs and focus on long-term institutional cooperation with the NSIs in the Western Balkan countries was highlighted as success factors. In the Western Balkan countries the support was either regional or bilateral. The results of the cooperation were visible in many statistical areas as well as in horizontal issues such as management and quality. The regional project will enter into its last phase covering the period 2018-2020, and the Balkan Project Office will be closed and managed from Stockholm. Furthermore, the regional projects' last phase is smaller in monetary terms. National projects are planned in Albania and Kosovo for the same period.

Ms Tănase (International Monetary Fund - IMF) gave an overview of the capacity development activities of the IMF in the area of statistics including the Financial Sector Stability Fund (FSSF) and Data for Decisions (D4D). Capacity development of the IMF is funded either by the IMF or by partners such as Switzerland, the Netherlands and European Commission/Eurostat, and includes 10 regional training centres spread all over the world. The medium term architecture of capacity building includes traditional bilateral support and regional training centres as well as the new D4D (focused on helping policy makers obtain policy relevant and timely data) and FSSF (focused financial soundness indicators and GFS balance sheet approach), both aimed at supporting lower or middle income countries. The IMF highlighted the results of the support specific for the enlargement countries in reporting EDP tables, GFS data and public sector debt statistics.

Ms Wesley Miles (United Kingdom) gave an overview of the United Kingdom's statistical capacity building via bilateral and global projects. Examples of global projects included cooperation with UNSD on use and dissemination of SDG indicators, cooperation with the World Bank funding household surveys and improvement of economic statistics through IMF in Africa and UNESCAP in Asia. Bilateral country projects include several African and Asian countries. Lessons learned highlighted the success of alignment of support with country strategies, basket funding and long term financing, whereas challenges included the need for more funding for statistics and political buy-in, SDGs and development of new technologies and new capacities. Ms Jane Bluff-Higgins (United Kingdom) introduced the recently established international development team, with the key priority to deliver high quality technical assistance ideally aligned with DFID priorities. Furthermore, the team aims at working with global partners to contribute to methodological best practices, and increase the expertise within the ONS.

Ms Bell (UNICEF) informed about UNICEF's activities in social statistics around the world. UNICEF supported the NSIs to conduct the Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS), methodological work and training, for example on the recent modules on disabilities by the Washington Group and supports countries in selecting SDG indicators. Regarding the SDG indicators, UNICEF was appointed a custodian agency for 10 indicators and joint custodian for 7 indicators. In March 2017 UNICEF published a report on the availability of data and baseline values for 50 SDG indicators which are directly relevant to children, and the MICS can be considered useful in filling some of the data gaps.

Conclusions: Participants appreciated the information about the technical assistance activities in statistics implemented by international organisations (EFTA, IMF, UNICEF) and some Member States (Sida, DFID) in various regions.

10. MED-HIMS PROGRAM

Mr Cerno (Eurostat) presented the MEDSTAT project "Mediterranean Household International Migration Survey (Med-HIMS)". He pointed out that in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the international community acknowledged the positive contribution that migration can make to development. This leads to the need to harmonise definitions, establish a methodology and produce indicators to measure migration flows at global level.

Med-HIMS is a regional programme consisting of coordinated migration surveys, with the aim to provide information on the determinants and consequences of international migration and mobility, with a focus on Middle East and North African countries.

Concerning the instruments used for gathering data, Mr Cerno explained that a set of manuals is used, the first of them corresponding to seven model questionnaires containing different modules, with a core set of specially designed questions. The main achievement is the output data that can be used as evidence-based information to establish a national migration profile in order to facilitate the development of migration policies.

The Programme started in 2008 after a request from the NSOs of ENP South countries. In the beginning the initiative was framed in the Medstat II programme. Since then, the project attracted the interest of many other international organizations (World Bank, UNFPA, UNHRC, ILO, IOM, LAS) and nowadays is a joint initiative with Eurostat as a chair.

The management of the programme is divided in two levels: international and national.

at international level, the driving force is the Programme Steering Committee (PSC) composed of representatives of the main international organizations mentioned above, and the Project Implementation Unit (PIU) that carries out different tasks such developing model instruments, providing technical assistance, etc.

at national level, the planning, preparation and implementation are managed by the NSOs through the National Project Steering Committee (NPSC) and the National Project Implementation Unit (NPIU) .

Mr Cerno mentioned the countries involved in the project (Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Lebanon) and added that Egypt and Jordan are implementing the last steps of the HIMS while Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia and Lebanon are preparing to carry out the survey in the coming 12 to 24 months

Referring to the future work and challenges, Mr Cerno mentioned that once the operational phase has been completed, additional work will be needed (e.g. for promotional material, visualisation and dissemination of data, comparative analysis, etc.). The main challenge remains to reduce the time gap between carrying out the survey and obtaining results. To address this challenge, four scenarios are envisaged to transform the original HIMS survey : a full Med-HIMS every 10 years; a "light" Med-HIMS to be carried out more regularly; adding migration modules to others surveys and include some migration-related questions in censuses.

Ms Junker (Eurostat) added that probably a "light" survey will be the approach taken in the future, considering the high costs of a full survey and the need for timely data.

Discussion

Ms Pederson (Norway) mentioned the expert group headed by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Statistics Norway and Eurostat that is working on guidelines for refugee statistics. She mentioned the work carried out by the international Expert Group on Refugee and Internally Displaced Persons Statistics (EGRIS) on developing guidelines for statistic on internally displaced persons (IDP). She asked whether a plan existed to include these guidelines into Med-HIMS.

Ms Montgomery (Eurostat) responded that UNHCR is part of the Med-HIMS Steering Committee and experts from the PIU also attend the meetings to discuss definitions. She added that Med-HIMS uses a slightly different definition of a migrant because, for instance, one of the goals is to measure also the seasonal migration. However, the same experts are involved both in Med-HIMS and in the group headed by UNHCR, Statistics of Norway and Eurostat, to ensure coordination.

Conclusions: Participants took note of the information on the MED-HIMS programme and the work done to harmonise the collection of migration statistics through the HIMS project in the ENP-South countries, and asked to be kept informed of future work.

11. OVERVIEW OF PAST AND FUTURE EVENTS

Ms Junker presented an overview about the main statistical cooperation events in the past:

Forum of EU-MED statisticians, Prague, Czech Republic, April 2016 June – November 2016, several meeting so the EU-Med working groups on energy,

transport, labour market, migration,, trade and BoP, business registers and business statistics

Meeting of the statistics panel for the ENP East countries on the CoP and the GLOS, Lviv, Ukraine, May 2016

Meeting of the statistics panel for the ENP East countries on the HICP and PPP, Chisinau, Moldova, October 2016

Global assessment Ukraine – Jan, April 2016 Global assessment Azerbaijan, Sept 2016 and February 2017 Global assessment Kazakhstan, October 2016 and March 2017 Peer review in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, February 2017 Peer review in Jordan, February 2017 the High Level Seminar for the EECCA countries on quality management and

coordination in Minsk, Belarus in October 2016, back to back with the EECCA conference on the transformative Agenda

the Working Group on Quality for the ENP South countries: approval of the Statistics Code of Practice for the European Neighbourhood South countries (based on the European statistics Code of Practice) and the development of the corresponding Quality Assurance Framework and Self-Assessment Questionnaires for reviews in Rome, Italy in November 2016;

Seminar on the methodology of peer reviews in African countries in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania in November 2016

Seminar on SDGs and assessments tools for Asian and Pacific countries, together with UNESCAP in Bangkok, Thailand in December 2016.

She also presented the upcoming meetings:

Meeting of the Principal National Coordinators of the ENP South countries, Athens, Greece, 21.3.2017

Regional event for the ENP South countries on visibility of statistics and relations with users, Athens, Greece, 22-23 March 2017

Meeting of the Forum of the EU-MED statisticians, ENP South countries, Valetta, Malta, 16-17 May 2017

Meeting of the 5th statistics panel for the ENP East countries on innovation, ICT, R&D, Tbilisi, Georgia, 22-23 May 2017

Workshop on labour market statistics for the EECCA countries, Vilnius, Lithuania, 4-5 July 2017

High level seminar for the EECCA countries, Minsk, Belarus, 2nd week of September 2017

Meeting of the 6th statistics panel for the ENP East countries on SILC, Odessa, Ukraine, October 2017

Meeting of the PGSC for the enlargement countries, Albania, 19-20 October 2017 ISI in Marrakesh, 17-21 July 2017 Global assessment for Moldova in 2017 International study tour for third countries, Luxembourg, November 2017 Meeting of the Quality working group for the ENP South countries, November 2017.

Conclusions: participants were informed about past and future events organised by Eurostat in the various regions and asked to make a calendar with the information available.

12. ANY OTHER BUSINESS

The CSO of Poland informed about the next Quality conference to take place in Cracow, Poland in the week 26-29 June 2018.

IV. CONCLUSIONS/RECOMMENDATIONS/OPINIONSAll planned topics were addressed during the meeting. National experiences and opinions were shared through oral interventions and documents provided for the meeting. No voting took place.

The requests for clarifications and the answers provided are detailed under each topic presented in the section Discussions (see section III).

V. NEXT STEPSEurostat will distribute the Code of principles in international cooperation to the participants.

Eurostat will organise a brainstorming with interested Member States to reflect and discuss on the set-up desired by the Member States, on what other involvement could be guaranteed on strategic level, on the balance between the desire to be involved and the available resources and how to evaluate the provided expertise. Such a brainstorming would be possible back-to-back with the ESSC meeting, the next possible occasion being most likely the ESSC meeting in November 2017

All countries were asked to check the information in the donor survey report and to provide comments by end of April 2017, with a view to finalise the report by June 2017.

Eurostat will continue sharing its plan of meetings and events with the countries, through these minutes and its cooperation newsletters.

VI. NEXT MEETINGNext meetings of the Management Group on Statistical Cooperation (MGSC) will take place in Luxembourg on 12-13 April 2018.

VII. LIST OF PARTICIPANTSAUSTRIA Ms Ana DJORDJEVIC BULGARIA Ms Veneta PETROVA CROATIA Ms Marija KAMENSKCZECH REPUBLIC Ms Lucie POLÍVKOVÁ DENMARK Ms Charlotte JUUL HANSEN ESTONIA Mr Meelis SOMELAR FINLAND Ms Marika POHJOLA FRANCE Ms Dominique FRANCOZ

Mr Serge DARRINÉ GERMANY Mr Ringo RAUPACH GREECE Ms Magdalini LERAKI HUNGARY Ms Tamara PÁL ITALY Ms Tiziana PELLICCIOTTI

Mr Carlo VACCARI

Ms Marina GANDOLFO LATVIA Mr Kaspars VAZARAUDZIS LITHUANIA Ms Raimonda ŠIMIENĖ LUXEMBOURG Mr Nico WEYDERT NETHERLAND Ms Carina FRANSEN POLAND Mr Mateusz KALETA PORTUGAL Ms Carolina SANTOS ROMANIA Ms Daniela ŞTEFĂNESCU SLOVAKIA Ms Mária STARKBAUEROVÁSLOVENIA Ms Andreja HOCEVARSPAIN Ms Ana CÁNOVAS ZAPATASWEDEN Mr Fredrik BOOD UNITED KINGDOM Ms Wesley MILES

Ms Emily POSKETT Ms Jane BLUFF-HIGGINS Ms Kay BOSANKO-SHEADY

ENLARGEMENT COUNTRIES

ALBANIA Ms Vjollca SIMONI BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA Ms Ivana MUTAVDZIC KOSOVO* Mr Ibrahim RRUSTEMIMONTENEGRO Ms Jelena MARKOVICSERBIA Ms Jelena BUDIMIRTHE FORMER YUGOSLAV REPUBLICOF MADECONIA Ms Tatjana MITEVSKA TURKEY Ms Sennur ONUR

EFTA COUNTRIES

NORWAY Ms Elisabeth LØYLAND OMHOLTMs Siv Irene PEDERSEN

SWITZERLAND Mr Benjamin ROTHEN

INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS

EFTA Mr Volker TÄUBEMs Rebecca GENTILE

IMF Ms Florina TANASE UNICEF Ms Lori BELL

EUROPEAN COMMISSION

DG NEAR Mr Bernd WILD DEVCO Mr Franco CONZATOESTAT Mr Pieter EVERAERS

Ms Claudia JUNKERMr Torbioern CARLQUISTMs Rosemary MONTGOMERYMs Ceri THOMPSONMr Marius ANDERSENMs Mihaela BOGATUMs Veneta BONEVAMr Leonel CERNOMr Maldi DEMAMr Ferenc GALIK Ms Rima GERDZIUNAITEMs Francine KESSLERMs Veronika RADERMACHERMr Michele SCHIVIZAPPAMr Youri SKASKEVITCHMs Jolanta SZCZERBINSKAMr Gaspar MELLADO TORIOMs Isabelle VANCONMs Veronique VAN DER ZANDE