One of the main tasks of the Conference of European Statisticians (CES) and its secretariat, the UNECE Statistical Division, is to coordinate the international statistical activities in the region. The CES and its Bureau provide a forum for the Heads of national and international statistical agencies to address the most relevant issues of official statistics. Participation of the major international organizations (like Eurostat, Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD), Interstate Statistical Committee of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank, etc.) helps to ensure that statistical work undertaken by these organizations in the UNECE region is coordinated and duplication is avoided.
The CES seminars held at the annual plenary sessions are a unique forum for top level management of statistical offices to explore in depth the fundamental issues of statistical systems and leading-edge emerging topics. The seminars in 2007 considered improving efficiency and productivity of statistical offices, and the measurement of capital beyond its traditional economic understanding. As a follow-up, the CES will collect and share best practices in measuring effectiveness, efficiency and productivity of statistical offices.
In 2008, the CES plenary session will deal with measuring population movement and integration in a globalized world. The large flows of population between regions have an impact on the labour market, income situation, pension schemes, sub-regional wealth, etc. The Conference will discuss how to measure the effects of the changes in the composition of population and the integration of immigrants in society. A second seminar will look at the strategic issues linked to the measurement of international transactions. The increasing cross-border movement of goods, services and financial flows coupled with the growing complexity of international financial markets and financial instruments constitute a challenge to statisticians. It has become more difficult to distinguish between the various purposes of transactions and their allocation to specific countries. The attention of the Heads of statistical offices will be drawn to the contemporary policy issues related to international transactions and their statistical implications.
The principles governing international statistical activities were adopted by the UNECE in October 2007, as well as by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and other regional commissions as binding for all statistical activities in their respective organizations.
Economic statistics
The UNECE secretariat participates in the process of updating the global methodological standard for the compilation of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the System of National Accounts 1993 (SNA 93). The aim is to ensure that the South-East European (SEE) and CIS countries are well informed of the process and their opinion is taken into account. A publication is being prepared that provides an overview of the methods used in 45 countries to measure the Non-Observed Economy. Two seminars on this topic were organized for the Central Asian countries (April 2007 in Kyrgyzstan and November 2007 in Tajikistan).
Among the emerging issues, the Statistical Division is actively involved in developing methodology to measure the impact of globalization on economic statistics. The increasing number of multinational companies and advances in communication and transport make the measurement of national economies through the traditional statistical methods more difficult. The CES created an Expert Group in cooperation with OECD, Eurostat, IMF and UNCTAD to prepare recommendations on how to deal with the distortions to statistics that are occurring as a result of globalization. Within the technical assistance framework, the UNECE organized in July 2007 a workshop on globalization in Ukraine.
In the field of economic short-term statistics, there is a serious lack of international comparability for the SEE and CIS countries for key indicators, such as industrial production and price indices. An analysis of the availability and comparability of short-term economic statistics in the CIS and SEE countries made in 2007 will guide the work to improve international comparability of short-term statistics for these countries. A pilot project to analyse the possibilities of calculating seasonally adjusted short-term statistics in the SEE and CIS region will be finalized in early 2008. The secretariat also aims to ensure that the SEE and CIS countries are able to catch up in the implementation of business registers – an indispensable tool for an efficient system of data collection from businesses. In 2008, a survey on business registers in UNECE non-EU member countries will be carried out in cooperation with Eurostat.
UNECE has actively contributed to the revision of the several existing manuals on price statistics. The results of an international survey on the use of the new Consumer Price Index (CPI) Manual will be published in 2008 in cooperation with ILO, and will be used for the revision of the electronic version of the CPI Manual.
Social and demographic statistics
The UNECE has a leading role (sometimes jointly with other organizations) in selected areas of social and demographic statistics, such as gender statistics, censuses, migration, and health status statistics. In gender statistics, the UNECE carries out methodological work as well as provides data on gender disparities. Training tools on gender statistics (developed in collaboration with the World Bank, United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and UNDP) have been used in regional and national training events, particularly in the CIS and SEE countries. The Training Manual on Gender Statistics is planned to be finalized by mid-2008. UNECE is also offering a unique forum for statisticians, researchers, and policymakers to improve the measurement of violence against women.
In the area of population and housing censuses, the UNECE focused its work on supporting countries in the implementation of the CES Recommendations for the 2010 Round of Population and Housing Censuses. Several regional workshops were conducted for Central Asian and other CIS countries (in collaboration with UNFPA). A set of countries’ experiences in register-based censuses has been published in 2007 and a collection of census forms and documentation is made available on the UNECE website. A publication on countries’ practices used at the 2000 Census round is in print.
The Task Force on migration statistics made a feasibility study of using receiving countries’ data to estimate emigration in sending countries and prepared draft recommendations. The work continues with the compilation of current practices to measure groups that are difficult to count, such as illegal, temporary and “circulatory” migrants, and to standardize survey tools to collect data on remittances (in collaboration with the World Bank). A feasibility study of a census module to measure emigration was carried out and the guidelines on emigration module to be included in the population census will be prepared in 2008.
UNECE provides statistical support in monitoring the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The joint UNECE/UNICEF/UNDP Task Force on MDG statistics launched an electronic product on MDGs for the UNECE region (MDG Info) and started work for the 2007 update. A proposal to set up an MDG database, in cooperation with UNICEF and UNDP, depends on the availability of extrabudgetary funding for its implementation.
Cross-cutting issues
Since 2006, the UNECE has been involved in developing a framework for measuring sustainable development jointly with Eurostat, OECD and country experts. The framework will reconcile the two main methods used so far by different countries and organizations, based either on the concept of capital, or sets of indicators linked to sustainable development policies. The draft framework is planned to be ready by June 2008.
The UNECE secretariat provides a unique forum where informatics managers from national and international statistical offices can share experience with other countries. Task forces are working on preparing a website on recommended practices in electronic data reporting and a toolbox for sharing statistical IT tools among offices. The CES Bureau recently called for strengthening the work in the field of statistical metadata to provide guidance to national statistical offices in the use of metadata related standards and to advocate for a corporate role of metadata in managing statistical activities.
A seminar on human resources management and training in statistical offices will take place in 2008, as a follow-up to the CES seminar held in June 2006.
UNECE Statistical Database
The UNECE maintains a free online statistical database (www.unece.org/stats/data) available in English and Russian, covering developed countries and economies in transition in the UNECE region. The database includes macro-economic, social and demographic indicators with gender breakdowns where possible. Data on transport have recently been added. Monthly user downloads have doubled during 2007, and a user survey gave positive feedback. Updates planned for 2008 include seasonally adjusted data for selected macro-economic series, revised Purchasing Power Parity data in line with the results of the International Comparability Programme, new social data on work-life balance, science, technology, and ICT, and further integration of transport data.
Technical assistance
An important part of the work is to assist countries in building and improving their statistical capacity by organising seminars and workshops, providing advisory services and promoting the implementation of international standards and recommendations. UNECE also helps these countries to implement the United Nations Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics by giving advice on statistical legislation and institutional frameworks.
Advisory services and training workshops were provided to Armenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kazakhstan, Moldova, Montenegro, Tajikistan, The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, and Ukraine on various topics, such as statistical legislation and institutional frameworks, statistical literacy, national accounts, non-observed economy, price statistics, gender statistics, statistics on violence against women, MDGs, etc. UNECE continued participation in monitoring the population and housing census in the United Nations administered region of Kosovo, together with Eurostat, the Council of Europe and UNSD. The first part of a Global Assessment of the National Statistical System of Kazakhstan was carried out together with the Statistics Division of UNESCAP in autumn 2007. UNECE also participated in the EU led peer review of the National Institute of Statistics of Romania.
Six workshops took place in 2007 within the United Nations Development Account Project for statistical capacity building under the Special Programme for the Economies of Central Asia (SPECA). The project focuses on 3 areas: population and housing censuses, measurement of the health status of population and measuring non-observed economy.
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