UNSD Capacity Building Initiatives Focusing on ECA countries

UNSD Capacity Building Initiatives Focusing on ECA countries

Contents § Guidance for capacity building activities § Coordination mechanisms § UN Development Account projects – 10 th tranche and others § UNSD-DFID project on SDG monitoring § Examples of UNSD capacity building activities in Africa in specific statistical domains § Future work

Guidance for capacity building activities, coordination mechanisms • Define key targets of capacity building efforts • Clarify coordination among different processes and players

Capacity building activities § Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) drive statistical activities to ensure measurement of progress § Capacity building activities therefore heavily focus on SDGs right now § Priorities are being set by international processes and resulting action plans

Coordination of SDG indicator work 193 Member States 54 Member States Indicators 22 + 1 members 24 Member States HLG Capacity Development Liaison Group IAEG Methodology & Standards 26 + 1 members

HLG-PCCB High-level Group for Partnership, Coordination and Capacity-building HLG-PCCB: § Provides leadership for SDG indicators implementation process § Promotes national ownership and fostering capacity-building, partnership and coordination § Fosters the modernization and harmonization of data infrastructures § Provides guidance on the content and organization of the United Nations World Data Forums Composition of the HLG-PCCB: § 22 Member States Africa: Angola, Rwanda, South Africa, Senegal, Morocco § Chair of the Statistical Commission (Brazil)

Cape Town Global Action Plan (CT-GAP) for Sustainable Development Data § Framework for the design and implementation of country-led statistical capacity building activities necessary to achieve the 2030 Agenda § Consists of key actions under six strategic areas: 1. Coordination and strategic leadership 2. Innovation and modernization of NSS 3. Basic statistical activities and programmes 4. Data dissemination and use 5. Multi-stakeholder partnerships 6. Resource mobilization § Developed by HLG-PCCB and launched at the 1 st UN Data Forum in Cape Town, South Africa in January 2017 § Adopted by the Statistical Commission at its 48 th Session in 2017

Action plan on implementation of the AU-UN framework on Agenda 2063 and the 2030 Agenda § Development Framework signed in January 2018 § One of thematic areas covers statistics: “d. Data ecosystem of member states”, addressing with UNSD cooperation for example: • Data and statistics strengthening (principles and guidelines, data standards) • SDG progress reports and database • Improving partnership, coordination and capacity building • Integration of new data sources • Handbook on Statistical Organization and Management • Building national census-taking capacity

Current and planned UNSD capacity building activities in Africa • Development Account projects (9 th, 10 th, 11 th tranche) • UNSD-DFID project • Support in statistical domains

UN Development Account Programme § Capacity development programme of the United Nations Secretariat aiming at enhancing capacities of developing countries in the priority areas of the United Nations Development Agenda § Originally established in 1997 and since then has programmed over 400 projects § Funded from the Secretariat’s regular budget § Implemented by 10 entities of the UN Secretariat (DESA, UNCTAD, UNEP, UN-Habitat, UNODC, ECA, ECE, ECLAC, ESCAP and ESCWA) § Always included projects related to selected fields of statistics § 10 th tranche Development Account is the first to include a joint Statistics Project of all implementing entities

10 th Tranche Development Account Programme on Statistics and Data (DA 10) Objective: § To strengthen the statistical capacity of developing countries to measure, monitor and report on the sustainable development goals in an accurate, reliable and timely manner for evidence-based policymaking Principles: § Adapt to the needs of the countries and the evolving agenda § Build on comparative advantages of and close cooperation between the Development Account implementing entities § Build on existing initiatives and programmes (coordination) § Encourage external participation and funding (partnership)

DA 10: activities and deliverables § Regional, sub-regional and national workshops / seminars / trainings § Expert group / technical group meetings § Advisory services / country missions § Guidelines / methodology / tools § Training material / e-learning / case studies / best practices DA 10: budget and timeframe § USD 10 M § Sept 2017 – Dec 2019 § Subsequent tranches of DA could complement or extend the DA 10: 10 implementing entities § Global: UNSD, UNEP, UNODC, UNCTAD, UN-Habitat § Regional: ECA, ECE, ECLAC, ESCAP, ESCWA

UNSD-DFID project on Monitoring the SDGs § § Making SDG indicators available to the broadest possible audience § Major Activities: Strengthening capacity of partner countries in the compilation and use of these indicators • • Research and analysis of country capacities Develop National SDGs Monitoring Strategies Create or upgrade national repositories of SDG indicators Technical assistance; missions; workshops at national and international level; study visits • Development of the SDG Data and Visualization Platform/Country Data Lab; setting up automated data exchange

1 4 Focus Areas § § § Dissemination of national and global SDG indicators Compilation and dissemination of metadata for national and global SDG indicators SDMX-based data and metadata exchange of SDG indicators Improving the coordination of National Statistical Systems of project countries Capacity assessment of SDG monitoring in project countries and development of SDG monitoring strategies

1 5 2018 Activities § § § Complete initial assessment missions (Jun-Jul) SDG Capacity Assessment (ongoing) Complete pilot SDG data exchange (Jun) Develop production SDG data exchange (Dec) Pilot SDG metadata exchange (Dec) Develop data/metadata exchange in SDG Platform (ongoing) National Reporting and Dissemination Platforms – recommendations and guidelines Assist project countries and work with providers in establishing national SDG reporting and dissemination platforms (ongoing) Develop implementation plans for project countries (ongoing) Workshops on data modeling/exchange (together with UNECA, in Kigali, Sep) Workshops on metadata compilation (from Nov)

Other on-going and planned DA Projects § Development Account 9 − Enhancing national statistical capacity to measure, monitor, assess and report on progress on achieving post-2015 goals and targets for sustainable development − Supporting Member States in developing and strengthening environment statistics and integrated environmental-economic accounting for improved monitoring of sustainable development § Development Account 11 − Strengthening geospatial information management in developing countries towards implementing the 2030 Agenda (Burkina Faso, Ethiopia) − Collection and use of international migration data in the context of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants *

UN Global Working Group (GWG) on Big Data for Official Statistics § § § Created in March 2014 by the UN Statistical Commission Mandated to give direction to the use of Big Data for Official Statistics Consisting of 28 countries and 16 international organizations, including Cameroon, Egypt, Morocco, Tanzania, African Development Bank and UNECA https: //unstats. un. org/bigdata/

The GWG promotes new data sources, new technologies, services and applications; and explores the use of satellite data, mobile phone data, scanner data and social media data for official statistics The GWG organizes global Big Data Conferences: o October 2014 in Beijing, China o October 2015 in Abu Dhabi, UAE o September 2016 in Dublin, Ireland o November 2017 in Bogota, Colombia 5 th Global Big Data Conference: April 2019 in Kigali, Rwanda

Examples of UNSD capacity building activities in Africa in specific statistical domains • • Environment statistics Environmental-economic accounting Economic statistics, including trade Geospatial information

Environment statistics § Regional, sub-regional and national workshops, national capacity development § Regional workshops to disseminate the Framework for the Development of Environment Statistics (FDES 2013) and build capacity on environment statistics covering 41 out of 54 ECA countries to date § • UNSD/Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), Mauritius (Jan 2015) • UNSD/East African Community (EAC), Tanzania (Jul 2015, Mar 2017, Oct 2017) [DA 9 project] • UNSD/Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), Togo (Oct 2015) • UNSD/Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS), Gabon (Nov 2017) • UNECA Regional Workshop (Sep 2017) [DA 10 programme] UNSD Planned workshop with ESCWA in November 2018 (covering some ECA countries such as Algeria, Mauritania, Libya, Morocco, Sudan, Tunisia)

Environment statistics § National workshops to disseminate the Framework for the Development of Environment Statistics (FDES 2013) and build capacity on environment statistics • Kenya (Aug 2016) [DA 9 project] • Uganda (Aug 2016) [DA 9 project] • Egypt (Sep 2016) – with COMESA • Rwanda (Jan 2017) [DA 9 project] • Tanzania (Jan 2017) [DA 9 project] • Burundi (Mar 2017) [DA 9 project] • Gambia (Feb 2018) [DA 10 programme] • Namibia (Feb 2018) [DA 10 programme] • Equatorial Guinea (April 2018)

Environment statistics § Development of training material and delivery of e-learning course • § UNSD E-Learning on the FDES with UNECA for anglophone and francophone African countries (Jun 2017). UNSD plans to continue its collaboration with UNECA and other regional/sub -regional partners in Africa to strengthen environment statistics in the region.

Environmental-economic accounting § § Developed national assessment and national plan for the implementation of the System of Environmental Economic Accounting in Kenya and Uganda • Pilot accounts for energy were developed by Kenya and released together with the national accounts • Pilot accounts for water were developed for Uganda • Both Kenya and Uganda are working on forest accounts Regional and national training workshops were undertaken in Kenya and Uganda • E. g. Nairobi, Kenya (11 -13 December) to showcase the national plan the results of the pilot compilation with participation of a number of countries, mostly signatories of the Gaborone Declaration on Natural Capital Accounting [the Gaborone Declaration has been signed by 14 African Countries by heads of state and calls for the implementation of Natural Capital Accounting, that is the SEEA]

Environmental-economic accounting § § EU Funded project Natural Capital Accounting and Valuation of Ecosystem Services (in collaboration with UNEP) • South Africa, together with Brazil, India, China and Mexico are the partner countries • Objectives: (1) support global activities in support of advancing the System of Environmental Economic Accounting Experimental Ecosystem Accounting; and (2) support the implementation of ecosystem accounting in countries. A work plan for the project implementation from 2018 -2019 has been agreed • § § § Covering national ecosystem extent account, city-region accounts, protected area accounts, marine ecosystem accounts, species accounts, and pilot a comprehensive set of ecosystem services account in the Kwa-Zulu Natal (KZN) region Regional policy forum jointly with GDSA on Natural Capital Accounting Regional training workshop on SEEA Experimental Ecosystem Accounting Workshop on linking sustainability reporting at the business level and the SEEA

Economic statistics, including trade § Regional Seminar on the Compilation and Application of Supply and Use Tables in Africa (February 2018, Addis Ababa) § § Supporting the completion of Supply-Use Tables in Seychelles and Eswatini § SDMX-IMTS country mission to Morocco (2017); SDMX-IMTS workshop with AUC in Tunisia (2018); similar workshop and country missions in 2019 § Participation in Specialized Technical Group on External Sector (STGES) in 2017 conducted by African Union Commission (AUC) § Cooperation with WTO, UNCTAD, AUC to provide e-learning courses on trade in services statistics in Africa (2018) IMTS technical assistances to South Africa, including IMTS regional workshop in 2018; cooperation on EUROTRACE software for trade statistics regional African partners (AUC, ECOWAS, COMESA, SACU); cooperation on compilation of Informal Cross-Border Trade with ECOWAS and COMESA

Future plans to continue capacity building activities § § § ECA region will remain a key partner for UNSD in capacity building activities Activities will focus on SDG-related statistical topics New forms of training will be explored Development Account projects and AU-UN framework serve as corner stones Newly formed Task Team on Capacity Development will work on coordination of UNSD’s activities with Regional Commissions • § Thematic Conferences at regional and subregional level on the organization of statistical organizations • § ECA is member of the Task Team Conference at ECA level is planned, subregions are possible Big Data Conference in Kigali, Rwanda planned for April/May 2019