The Busan Action Plan for Statistics:

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The Busan Action Plan for Statistics A
Developing Country Perspective Abdul Rahman
Ghafoori President General Central Statistics
Organization, Afghanistan Meeting on the Busan
Action Plan for Statistics 25 February 2012 New
York
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OUTLINE OF PRESENTATION

• Background
• Over-all objectives
• Fully integrate statistics in decision making
• Promote wider and open access to statistics
• Increase resources for statistical systems
• In each objective
• Progress
• Challenges
• Actions

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BACKGROUND

• Afghanistan suffered 30 years of war and still
  insecurity exists in about one-third of the
  districts in the country
• Statistics a heavy casualty physical and
  statistical infrastructure have been badly
  damaged and skill levels depleted
• But huge demand exists for data for national
  reconstruction and development
• International community provides about 50 of
  national recurrent and investment budget
• CSO receives about 2.5m a year from the
  government and 2m to 5m from donors 
• Statistics system needs to be rehabilitated 

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Obj Fully integrate statistics in decision making

• Afghanistan National Statistics Plan (ANSP)
  national priorities
• sets out manageable data collection given
  resource and capacity constraints
• CSO briefs the Council of Ministers on progress
  and key economic and social indicators
• Discussions with policy makers in ministries
  about priorities, e.g., Deputy Minister
  of Ministry of Labor on the labour force module
• Statistical Task Force meeting bringing key
  stakeholders together (national and
  international) to discuss latest developments and
  priorities 

P R O G R E S S
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Obj Fully integrate statistics in decision
making
C H A L L E N G E S

• Fast moving environment and priorities change
  frequently
• Capacity of decision makers to use statistics for
  decision making and monitoring is weak
• National processes for planning, budgeting and
  ME are still underdeveloped. Hence, difficult
  to ensure statistics is fully integrated

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Obj Fully integrate statistics in decision
making

• Seminars for users and producers of statistics as
  well as other workshops and conferences
• Council of Ministers updated on the key economic
  and social indicators available
• Build the capacity of statistical cells within
  line ministries to enable them to better link
  into the planning, budgeting and ME processes
  within their ministries
• Continue with Statistical Task Force meetings
• Need to better integrate statistics into the
  National Priority Programme process

A CT I O N S
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Obj Promote wider and open access to statistics
P R O G R E S S

• Efforts to improve the timeliness and reliability
  of data is continuous
• Improvements to the website
• Micro data access policy
• Statistical Year Book
• Accelerated Data Program (ADP) documenting
  datasets

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Obj Promote wider and open access to statistics
C H A L L E N G E S

• Sharing and dissemination of information by
  Government Ministries
• Capacity to analyse data and be confident of its
  quality
• Different methodologies and concepts used across
  government can lead to confusion  

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Obj Promote wider and open access to statistics

• Development of AMIS - cross government
  databank/base accessible to all users
• Further enhancements to the website
• Develop and implement a dissemination strategy
• Maintain a catalogue of available
  surveys/statistics of forthcoming reports
• Improve publishing capacity within CSO
• Improving CSO analytical capacity to
  improve presentation of information for
  stakeholders use

A CT I O N S
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Obj Increase resources for statistical systems

• System wide approach to the development of
  statistics in place.  Donors coordinate behind
  ANSP - in line with national priorities
• Statistics for Results Facility (SRF) funding
  received to support implementation
• Statistics Task Force (STF) provides a forum to
  ensure coordination of support and activities
• CSO in the lead in terms of coordinating the
  national statistical system and donor support
• Lack of resources is currently not a major
  problem for Afghanistan but could be in 2015.

P R O G R E S S
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Obj Increase resources for statistical systems

• Some donors still prefer to operate outside ANSP
•  
• Large demand for data from International
  Community (including military) some are prepared
  to pay for what they need rather than aligning
  behind a prioritised strategy 
• This leads to
• i) spreading CSO capacity too thinly across many
  activities,
• ii) distorted incentives for data collection,
  and  
• iii) duplication of efforts 
• Fiscally constrained environment means limited
  funding from the Government for statistics.
  Dependence on donor support will be required in
  the long term

C H A L L E N G E S
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Obj Increase resources for statistical systems
A CT I O N S

• To continue efforts to bring donors into line
• UN is trying to better coordinate their agencies
  efforts in support of statistics
• CSO to continue to lobby for the government and
  donor funds to support the statistical system

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Thank You