FAO-UNFPA-SPC Regional Training Workshop on Linking Population and
Housing with Agricultural Censuses
28 May – 1 June, Noumea, New Caledonia
Pacific Islands Agricultural Statistics and the
Ten-Year Pacific Statistical Strategy (TYPSS)
2011 - 2020
Gerald Haberkorn
Manager, Statistics for Development Programme
Secretariat of the Pacific Community
Noumea, New Caledonia
geraldH@spc.int
(www.spc.int/sdp)
Ten-Year Pacific Statistics Strategy, 2011 – 2020
• To progress matters pertaining to improving access to
essential statistics and associated indicators to inform on
social and economic development, the region has embarked
on an ambitious Ten Year Pacific Statistics Strategy.
• Rationale for its development:
Political pressure/mandate by Pacific Forum (region’s heads
of Government, including Aus and NZ) in its 2005
Pacific Plan, to
o strive for greater harmonization of statistical concepts,
measures, classifications and systems to provide comparable
statistics across the region;
o Develop a core set of development indicators across key sectors.
1. Political context – growing awareness and greater
recognition of statistics
Recent developments at national level (a)
• Samoa, Tonga, Papua New Guinea (2010):
o strong political support with prime ministers of Samoa and Tonga, and
the National Executive Council of PNG endorsing in 2010 the
development of National Strategies for the Development of Statistics
(NSDS), jointly undertaken by a PARIS21-SPC partnership,
• Solomon Islands, Vanuatu (2011)
o Second group of countries expressing interest to develop their own NSDS
in partnership with Paris21/SPC (consultations with both countries to
develop NSDS roadmap in March 2012, with draft reports to be
submitted to both Governments by June.
• Cooks Islands (2012)
o Recent expression of interest to participate in NSDS process
1. Political context – growing awareness and greater
recognition of statistics
Growing recognition at all levels (b)
• need for regional solutions to address national statistical
demands and priorities that do not undermine the statistical
sovereignty of small island states;
• regional solutions to be complemented (in most cases
preceded) by national solutions
o illustrated in the insufficient allocation of resources to NSOs to
undertake basic statistical work (including undertaking routine statistical
collections) and regularly providing a regionally agreed-to standard set
of statistics and indicators.
1. Political context – growing awareness and greater
recognition of statistics
Recent developments at international level
• Statistics becoming a politically acceptable discussion point in policy
debates and aid negotiations (beyond perennial complaints about timeliness,
quality, lack of accessibility)
• Statistics on this year’s FEMM agenda (2 – 4 July, Tarawa)
• This is largely due to the emergence of, and sustained efforts and
commitment to the cause by Paris21 over the past decade.
1. Political context – growing awareness and greater
recognition of statistics
Growing recognition at all levels
• Existing/growing demands for national and regional statistics
cannot be met by adhering to the status quo;
• most small island states NSOs are not in a position, and most
likely will never be in a position to collect and compile, tabulate
and analyse, report and disseminate everything required (let
alone desired), and even less so – do this on their own
• RESULT:
o development of TYPSS, and associated action plans
o Pacific Statistics Strategy Action Plan, Phase 1 (2011-2014)
2. Designing a regional statistical strategy in the Pacific
island region
Pacific Statistics Strategy Action Plan, Phase 1 (2011-2014)
Outlines:
• six key strategic objectives guiding statistical development in the
Pacific Island region over the next decade;
• Specific activities to be undertaken to achieve these objectives ;
• Purpose as well as the importance of each activity, and what would
be missed by not implementing each activity,
• Expected outcomes of each activity,
• Activity costs (for Phase 1 only), and
• Potential partnerships with other statistics providers and agencies
with distinct comparative advantages .
3. TYPPS, 2011 – 2020
Relevance to Agriculture/Forestry, Fisheries?
• With the vast majority of Pacific island people sustaining their
livelihoods through economic and subsistence activities in
these sectors, the sustainable statistical collections of a core
set of statistics and associated development indicators in this
field represents a key objective in Phase 1 of the Pacific
Statistics Action Plan (2011 – 2014).
• Political mandate + regional statistical development strategy /
framework provides basis for “good fit” with FAO Global
strategy.
3. TYPPS, 2011 – 2020
Where are we heading, what are we aiming for?
• Given political mandate (Pacific Plan) on one hand, and
considering what is manageable by largely small and
resources-poor national statistical agencies, TYPSS’ overall
strategic focus is to pursue regional solutions to address
national statistical demands and priorities.
• Relevance to theme of this workshop?
o Five key priorities for us, which have tangible synergies with the
“Global Strategy to improve Agricultural and Rural Statistics”
3. TYPPS, 2011 – 2020
[1] Develop a core set of agricultural/forestry and fisheries
indicators, undertake a data inventory (gap analysis) and NSS
capacity assessment to collect the underlying statistics.
• Stage 1: complete
15 core indicators developed for agriculture and forestry, and 19 for
Fisheries, in consultation with key technical stakeholders
• Stage 2: work in progress
Consultation with countries to validate identified/reported
o Data values
o Data gaps
3. TYPPS, 2011 – 2020
Agriculture:
• Overall coverage across countries was / remains shocking (25/10/11)
(considering sector critical for sustainable livelihoods of vast majority of PIC population)
3. TYPPS, 2011 – 2020
Agriculture:
• PNG, as largest/most resource-rich country in region has not had an
agricultural census since 1963, and third-largest country, Solomon islands
never had one.
• Situation with fisheries statistics similar last year,: cross-regional coverage
below 20%; recent access to Pacific-wide fisheries sectoral review ,
inclusive of targeted data-mining ,increased coverage to 78%.
• Testing the water in Tonga (and 3 other countries) in late 2011 by
emulating the Fisheries sectoral review, improved coverage of 15 key
agricultural/forestry indicators from 13% to 67%.
• Lesson learned (yet again): not readily accessible data/statistics doesn’t mean
they don’t exist, but require intensive digging/ data mining.
3. National Minimum Development Indicator data audit
– background and progress report
AGRICULTURE AND FORESTRY ( 15 indicators)
National Minimum Development Indicator Database (24 October 2011)
AF-1.1 Proportion of household income from agriculture and forestry activities (disaggregated by income from subsistence
and income from sales)
Tonga
(start)
Tonga
(now)
Y
Y
AF-1.2 Proportion of labour force engaged in agriculture and forestry activities (disaggregated by gender and youth)
Y
AF-1.3 Volume and value of domestic production of agriculture and forestry products
Y
AF-1.4.1 Area of arable land as proportion of total land area
Y
AF-1.4.2 Area of forested land as proportion of total land area
AF-1.4.3 Area of reserved/protected land as proportion of total land area
AF-1.4.4 Area of reserved/protected land as proportion of arable land used
AF-1.5 Volume and value of trade (imports, exports and re exports) of agricultural and forestry products
Y
mixed
AF-1.6 Prices of domestic and international agriculture and forestry products
AF-2.1 Rate of deforestation
AF-2.2 Rate of land degradation (e.g. soil erosion)
Y
Y
Y
AF-2.3 Rate of biodiversity loss
AF-2.4 Contribution of locally grown foods to diets
Y
AF-2.5 Diversity of diets
Y
AF-2.6 Proportion of national budget allocation to agriculture and forestry (disaggregated by extension services, research,
information dissemination etc)
Y
3. TYPPS, 2011 – 2020
Stage 3: proposed for 2nd half of 2012
• Replicate Tonga approach in other countries
• Provide national and key financial and technical stakeholders with
opportunity for final review/comments
• Proposed collaboration with FAO in context of Global strategy:
o Review and populate our core set to ensure compatibility with FAO’s Menu of
Indicators for Agricultural Statistics as outlined in the “Global Strategy to
improve Agricultural and Rural Statistics.”
o Ensure key data/information demands from other sectors / stakeholders are
adequately addressed (e.g. food security, national accounts)
3. TYPPS, 2011 – 2020
[2] Recognize important contribution of AFF to Pacific Islands GDP
(through formal contributions AND via subsistence and informal activities)
• AFF statistics collected in censuses, household surveys and other thematic
statistical collections (e.g. crop estimation surveys, studies on farm
management, on cost of cultivation; ad hoc statistical collections concerned
with prices and production relating to agriculture) need to pay greater
attention to data requirements for National Accounts.
Proposed collaboration with FAO in context of Global strategy:
• Closer collaboration with between SPC-SDP, PFTAC and FAO towards
improving the collection and compilation of AFF statistics on a regular basis
for the production of National Accounts, including the implementation of the
2008 SNA.
3. TYPPS, 2011 – 2020
[3] Develop core agricultural/forestry/fisheries statistics
module for inclusion in regular Household surveys, to produce
• much needed sectoral baseline information, and
• provide statistical evidence to make a business case for some
countries pursuing regular fully-fledged Agricultural censuses.
Proposed collaboration with FAO in context of Global strategy:
• Given many competing demands for sectoral statistical collections, small
island countries are unlikely to implement more comprehensive household
survey programs than their current focus on HIES and DHS.
• Given obvious thematic synergies with HIES, seek FAO technical advice on
substance matters (core questions) and questionnaire design, to ensure
optimal statistical coverage with a limited number of questions.
3. TYPPS, 2011 – 2020
[4] Assist countries pursuing the development of National
Strategies for the Development of Statistics (NSDS) to integrate
(mainstream) agricultural/rural statistics into this strategy
Proposed collaboration with FAO in context of Global strategy:
• With SPC working principally in partnership with PARIS-21 in the
region, it would be beneficial for both parties here to leverage off
FAO’s experience in other countries.
3. TYPPS, 2011 – 2020
[5] Increase advocacy with Pacific island NSOs to include core
agricultural census questions in their population censuses in
the upcoming 2020 round of population and housing censuses.
Proposed collaboration with FAO in context of Global strategy:
• With FAO and UNFPA playing key roles in this area, and possibly also
PARIS-21, ensure agricultural statistics are mainstreamed into
countries’ national statistical systems, recognizing that Population
and Housing censuses provide the statistical foundation for Pacific
Islands national statistical systems.
Thank you