African Development Bank Group
At the Center
of Africa’s
Transformation
Statistical Capacity Building
Strategic approach
African Symposium for Statistical Development
Gaborone February 16, 2013
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Content
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Statistical Capacity Building (SCB)
The Thrust of SCB
Statistics support to Bank TYS
Objectives
Capacity Building defined
Strategic areas
Source of Funding
Way Forward
Statistical Capacity Building (SCB)
 The SCB Program has a long-term sustainable agenda implemented through reinforcing
phases focusing on a coordinated enhancement of the capacity of statistical systems at
three levels
 the country level - emphasizing strengthening institutional capacity for generating
reliable and timely data;
 sub-regional levels - strengthening capabilities of Sub-Regional Organizations (SROs) to
coordinate and support national statistical activities and manage regional integration
statistics; and
 at regional level – a regional element, managed by the Bank to provide overall strategic
leadership, advocacy and oversight.
Statistical Capacity Building (SCB)
 The SCB Program responds to needs of countries as well as the Bank’s commitments on
international engagements on Aid Effectiveness of the Paris Declaration and other
Initiatives, such as the Marrakech Action Plan for Statistics (MAPS) (2004) which calls for
strengthening the statistical capacity of recipient countries by preparing NSDS aligned to
the medium-term development strategies; and, the Busan Plan of Action of the High-Level
Forum in 2011.
 The Busan Action Plan of November 2011 on Statistics for Transparency, Accountability
and Results includes:
 Action 1 - Strengthen and re-focus national and regional statistical strategies;
 Action 2 - Implement standards for data preservation, documentation, and
dissemination ;
 Action 3 - Develop programs to increase the knowledge and skills needed to use
statistics effectively for planning, analysis, monitoring, and evaluation;
 Action 4 - Build and maintain results monitoring instruments to track outcomes of
all global summits, high level forums and initiatives and,
 Action 5 - Ensure financing for statistical information is robust and that funding
instruments and approaches reflect the new modalities and actors in development
finance.
The Thrust of SCB
 Proposed SCB (2014-2016) Program builds on the first three phases
and will continue to emphasize strengthening statistical systems
based on international frameworks and common regional platforms
including;
 the Regional Reference Strategic Framework (RRSF),
 National Strategies for the Development of Statistics (NSDS);
 the Strategy for the Harmonization of Statistics in Africa (SHaSA);
and,
 the African Symposium on Statistical Development and Common
Methods, Standards and Practices in Key Areas of Statistics.
The Thrust of SCB (cont’d)
The strategic thrust of phase of SCB
 Focuses on RMCs’ development strategies and their priorities.
 Is aligned with the orientation and responds to the Bank’s Strategy (2013-2022) which
aims at Transformation of Africa’s Economy by focusing on Improving the Quality of
Growth in RMCs through focusing Bank’s assistance towards:
 helping African countries achieve more inclusive growth, leading to deep
reductions in poverty.
 making such growth sustainable by helping Africa gradually transit to green growth
that will protect livelihoods, improve food security; promote sustainable use of
natural resources and spur innovation, job creation and economic development. To
this effect, Bank
 adopted five core focal priorities of support, namely,
 infrastructure development,
 regional economic integration,
 private sector development,
 governance and accountability and
 skills and technology development.
Statistics in Support of the Bank’s Ten Year Strategy
2013-2022
Two objectives to support
transformation
Five core operational
priorities
Inclusive
growth
Inclusive
growth
indicators
surveys
Gender
Statistics
MDGs, Poverty
PPPs, Population
Censuses, Civil
Registration and
Vital Statistics
Gradual
transition
to green
growth
Environment
Food
& climate
security &
change
agricultural
statistics
statistics
Three areas of special
emphasis
Fragile
states
1. Infrastructure statistics (AIDI, AIKP)
2. Regional integration indicators (Harmonized
CPI, PPPs, Trade statistics, AIKP, AIDI)
3. Private sector development
Agriculture
& food
security
(Africa Information Highway, Labor statistics,
Business registers, AIKP, AIDI)
4. Governance & accountability
(Africa Information Highway/Open data,
Governance statistics)
5. Skills & technology
Gender
(Labor statistics, EMIS)
Green growth
indicators
NSDS
Enhanced
Technical
assistance &
financial support
Food security,
agriculture,
environment &
climate change
statistics
Gender statistics,
Statistics on Asset
ownership and
control
Objectives
• …..to consolidate the progress made during the three phases and build sustainable
statistical capacity in national and regional statistical systems in RMCs to generate,
and disseminate reliable and timely statistics that conform to regional and
international standards.
Why?
• The production of official statistics based on regional and international
cooperation yields the basis for regional and global comparison considering that
such statistics are public goods available to Governments, the donor community,
the private sector, the civil society and other users.
– Firstly, the data meets the needs for results measurements of the national development agenda
and assistance strategies of development partners; and, private sector activities and decisions.
– Secondly, the statistics provides the instrument for good governance and accountability by serving
as tools for monitoring and evaluation for informed decision-making and economic and policy
management. It is also serves to assess the performance of public programs and their impact on
intended beneficiaries to hold governments, development partners and other stakeholders
accountable.
Capacity building
Capacity building/development refers to the approaches, strategies and methodologies used to improve
performance at the individual, organizational, network/sector or broader system level.
CB fundamentally is about change and transformation
Objectives
The objective of capacity building is to:
• enhance, or more effectively utilize, skills, abilities and resources;
• strengthen understandings and relationships; and
• address issues of values, attitudes, motivations and conditions in order to support sustainable
development
Principles
•
broad-based participation and a locally driven agenda;
•
building on local capacities;
•
ongoing learning and adaptation;
•
long term investments/process - is a set of interrelated actions and activities that are performed to
achieve a pre-specified set of products, results or services.
Strategic Focus Areas
SCB 2004-2013: Lessons
Comparative advantage
Selectivity and focus…
Flexibility is necessary…
Priority areas
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Strategic areas
Core
 NSDS
 Harmonized Consumer Price
Index
 Action Plan-Agriculture Stats
 National Accounts
(methodological enhancement)
 Infrastructure
 Labour Statistics
 Statistical Business Register
 Integration of the ICP/CPI/HCPI
 Open Data Platform & High Way
information system
Others
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Governance
Poverty
Gender
CRVS
South-South cooperation
including of peer review
mechanisms
 Support to STCs
 Support to SROs
 Country-Driven Technical
assistance
Source of Funding
 SCB approved funds
 LIC
 SROs
 MIC Funds
 Middle Income countries
 SROs
 Fragile State facility
 Fragile states (20)
 Bank’s Project & Programs
 Selected countries (country driven)
 Contribution from partners
 DFID, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
 Korea, EU, etc.
 To assure sustainability & ownership, country commitment is critical – investment in statistics
Way Forward
 Program Commencement
 Mid 2014
 Interim arrangements prior to starting
 Agree on the planned activities
 Work plans
 Budgets
 Finalize the conditions precedent to disbursement
Thank You