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Contributions from
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InWEnt Forum
Water utilities: managing bottlenecks intelligently
Statistics for poverty reduction
02/2006 |
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[ Good governance ]
Statistics for poverty reduction
Without reliable facts and figures, it is impossible to make effective policies. Because governments need sound data, the UN Millennium Development Goals pose challenges to statisticians, too. D+C/E+Z talked to Thomas Wollnik, director of InWEnt’s Centre for Economic, Environmental and Social Statistics.
[ Interview with Thomas Wollnik ]
Why are statistics so important?
Statistics reduce the complexity of the real world – something which is particularly important in a highly intricate, globalised world. Interest used to focus largely on economic statistics but that has changed since the early 1990s. The awareness has grown of social and environmental aspects also being crucial to sustainable development. The importance of statistics stems mostly from the fact that they serve to verify objectives. That makes them an important tool for political decision-making.
What is the situation like in developing countries?
Your question cannot be answered in a single sentence. The picture differs far too much from one country to another. Nearly all countries have statistical agencies. Indeed, many constitutions foresee a statistical office and define its role. But there are lots of areas in which dependable data are lacking nonetheless. That is especially so for social and environmental statistics but also for some areas of economics. The present debate on the implementation of the Millennium Development Goals highlights such deficits.
What is the main problem?
In nearly every country, censuses are supposed to be held regularly. That requirement is made by most national statistics laws. In many cases, the specified interval is ten years. To be fair, though, that is so in Germany, too. Nonetheless, the most recent national census was held almost 20 years ago. For developing countries, the obstructive factors are often poor infrastructure as well as lack of financial and human resources.
How do developing countries gather their data?
Again, the picture is quite heterogeneous. In many countries, data are collected by more agencies than only the statistical office. In Germany, when we speak of unemployment figures, we mean the figures put together by the Federal Employment Agency. Health figures are gathered by the Ministry of Health. And it is the same in many developing countries. In some countries with highly centralised administrations, like Zambia for instance, however, the national statistics office collects all the relevant data. But it should also be noted that the necessary data are often unattainable in countries with a large informal and subsistence economy.
Is good governance possible without adequate statistics?
Every government needs criteria for assessments. Such criteria are key requirements for comparative reviews. Statistical data are essential for any sensible budget policy. Politicians and civil society need to be able to see how much money has been spent on what. A government that publishes its data is thus strengthening good governance – because all statistics permit a measure of control by the public. In the case of development cooperation, statistics also provide vital guidance for decision-makers on both sides – donors and recipients alike.
What contribution can statistics make to achieve the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) on poverty reduction?
Statistics are a tool and not an end in themselves. Their importance resides in the fact that they enable an accurate image of reality to be painted on the basis of empirical data. They thus help politicians set an appropriate course. The MDGs quantify many of the targets that need to be met. They identify 48 indicators. That degree of precision makes the MDGs so attractive for statistics. For anyone who takes the MDGs seriously, statistics are a must. The UN summit in September showed that the goals and their attainment will not be verified by international appraisals but by the developing countries themselves. That has transferred a certain amount of ownership to those countries.
What does that mean in practice?
Where book-keeping is accurate and transparent, funds are easier to track. It is the only way to check whether money earmarked for schools is actually used for the intended purposes in the districts and municipalities. That is why good statistical data are essential for good governance. There has to be a way of verifying – even at a later date – what happened with the money: how many new teachers were appointed, how many schools were built, how much money was spent on equipment? All that can be verified by statistics. I always argue for a decentral statistical system. Even local authorities in remote areas should know how many pupils their schools are catering for, what the student/teacher ratios are and what should be the priorities in future.
What challenges does statistics face in developing countries?
Statistical offices – and the ministries they report to – need to address the MDGs with the modest means at their disposal. Making progress by 2015 is not easy. Ten years is a short time in statistics. Developing countries receive international assistance to set up and enhance their statistical authorities. In spring 2004, donor representatives in Marrakesh discussed how to improve cooperation in the field of statistics. The result was the establishment of the Forum for Statistical Capacity Building. A crucial role was played by the World Bank, which set up the Trust Fund for Statistical Capacity Building, but the IMF, various UN institutions and bilateral donors were involved as well. The common goal was coherent promotion. In a first step, support will be provided for the national censuses planned in many developing countries for 2007/2008.
What does that mean in terms of action?
One priority is to build technical capacities. If you want to conduct a survey, people need a vehicle to get out into the field, they need equipment to record the information, and they need to know how to generate information efficiently. But that is not all. Statistics has now reached a point where it needs to look beyond the dashboard. Problems like HIV/Aids call for multi- and interdisciplinary approaches. Statisticians need to work together with doctors and experts in relevant fields, professional borders need to fall. All this requires a political mandate domestically. Statistical offices are not independent operators; they generally report to ministries. And those ministries need to be prepared to grant statistical agencies a certain amount of autonomy. That necessitates a re-think on the part of agency personnel and political will on the part of the government concerned.
InWEnt runs a Centre for Economic, Environmental and Social Statistics. What services does it offer?
The connection between official statistics, human rights, democratisation and good governance has been under discussion since the year 2000. That is when the first big conferences were held. InWEnt took the cue and acted on it. The main emphasis is on training; we run seminars, courses, further training programmes. Personally, however, I define capacity building in broader terms. I am convinced that it is not much good just to train statistical office staff and then leave them to find their own way in the world they came from. We need to provide follow-up support for course participants and also study the problems faced by the statistical agencies in the field. Activities like that are becoming increasingly important. We need to confer with course participants, their superiors and other partner organisations and consider what we can do to create adequate, local structures for the long term.
What are the main thrusts of your work?
We cover the whole gamut of applied statistics – from traditional statistics (economic statistics, national accounts) to environmental statistics, from new procedures for understanding the possible impacts of HIV/Aids on political systems or the economy to the creation of national indicators for assessing the state of governance, democratisation or human rights. Our goal is to give national agencies an understanding of the methods used by international institutions so they can do the whole thing themselves. A country like Uganda needs to be empowered to create a corruption index of its own in three, four or five years so that it will no longer need to be rated by New York, Washington or Berlin.
Questions by Norbert Glaser.
Thomas Wollnik
heads the Centre for Economic,
Environmental and Social Statistics
at InWEnt.
thomas.wollnik@inwent.org
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