Archive:MEDSTAT programme

This article is part of a set of background articles introducing the international statistical cooperation of the European Union (EU) with non-EU countries and it focuses on the southern grouping of countries under the European Neighbourhood Policy (the ENP-South countries). The principal vehicle by which the EU currently provides the necessary assistance to ENP-South countries in statistics is the multi-country programme called 'MEDSTAT'.

Countries concerned

Through three distinct phases (MEDSTAT I, II and III), this cooperation programme has developed from capacity building work, to statistical quality work and on to evidence-based policy-making work. The MEDSTAT I and II programmes covered 10 Mediterranean partner countries: Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, the occupied Palestinian territory, Syria, Tunisia and Turkey. The MEDSTAT III programme, however, has covered only nine countries, since Turkey has become a candidate country. Furthermore, cooperation with Syria during the course of the programme has been temporarily suspended. Lastly, it should be noted that although Libya is an ENP-South country it is not an active participant in the MEDSTAT programme.

Brief history

The Euro-Mediterranean statistical cooperation was launched by the Barcelona declaration and the Euro-Mediterranean partnership (1995/1996) which intended ‘to promote cooperation in statistics in order to harmonise methods and exchange data’. The Valencia seminar, which took place in December 1995, was the starting point of the regional programme for statistical cooperation. A number of missions in the Mediterranean countries helped to establish a list of priority fields to be covered, and these were approved during the Naples Seminar in June 1996. Ever since then, three consecutive MEDSTAT programmes have been implemented (I, II and II). The latest of the three, MEDSTAT III, builds on the achievements of MEDSTAT I and MEDSTAT II and aims to consolidate and further strengthen the statistical cooperation drawing on past results.

MEDSTAT I (1996-2003) – The first cooperation programme with MED countries

The main objective of MEDSTAT I was to provide the foundations for a standardised collection and exchange of reliable, harmonised and up-to-date statistics, which in turn would allow the European Union (EU) to monitor the development of a free trade area (for manufactured goods) in the whole Mediterranean basin. The programme covered six statistical sectors: trade in goods and services, transport, migration, tourism, environment and national accounts. Regarding the statistical assistance supplied by the EU, two horizontal fields of activity (training and information systems) were included in the programme’s operational range. Between 2003 and 2006, a second project (MEDSTAT-Env II) focused on the environment sector.

MEDSTAT II (2006-2009) – Improving the quality of statistical services

Drawing on the results of MEDSTAT I, MEDSTAT II mainly intended to improve the quality of the statistical services. This was to be achieved through the consolidation of the Euro-Mediterranean statistical cooperation. Another objective was to foster the further development of the statistical information system in the Mediterranean countries (i.e. to improve the quality of the compilation and exchange of statistical data between the EU and the Mediterranean countries). The joint efforts were centred on the promotion of the production of harmonised statistics with respect to international standards (i.e. collecting timely, relevant and high-quality data, necessary for political decision-making and ensuring good governance); on the provision of assistance to the National Statistical Systems (NSSs) of the Mediterranean partners (in terms of institutional and inter-institutional operations, equipment and human resources); on the promotion of the transparency of statistical activities which would make it easier for the growing number of users to find the data they are looking for.

Following an assessment of the statistical situation in each partner country (Country statistical situation report – CSSR), the European Commission, in cooperation with each of the Mediterranean partner countries, identified priorities regarding the necessary actions for each country (see MEDSTAT - Objectives). As a result, in addition to the six statistical sectors so far covered by MEDSTAT I, the scope of MEDSTAT II was extended to include the following sectors: social statistics, agriculture and energy.

MEDSTAT III (2010-2013) – Promoting evidence-based policy-making

MEDSTAT III was launched in April 2010, initially for a total duration of two years, and it covered a planned budget of four million Euro. Soon afterwards, however, the European Commission decided to extend the programme to the end of 2013 and to provide it with some additional funding. The overall objective of the current MEDSTAT III programme is to promote evidence-based decision-making and to stimulate democratic development by improving the availability and use of statistical data in ENP-South countries. Moreover, it also aims to consolidate and further expand the progress achieved during MEDSTAT I and II by providing users with a wider range of quality data in the priority thematic sectors. The 6 priority thematic sectors chosen for MEDSTAT III were agriculture, energy, migration, social statistics, transport and trade, and balance of payments statistics, as well as the horizontal activities of training and dissemination.

Directors of the National Statistical Institutes of the Mediterranean ENP countries and the EU Commission have already begun discussing the future form and scope of the Euro-Mediterranean cooperation in statistics after the conclusion of the MEDSTAT programme.

The development of a post-MEDSTAT strategy, the role of Eurostat, the priority action areas and the form and responsibilities of a potential secretariat are being discussed.

Resources and tools

Role of partners

The MEDSTAT III programme involves various actors in the European Union and in the Mediterranean partner countries. EuropeAid is the contracting authority of the programme. The role of Eurostat is to provide technical advice to EuropeAid (for instance, through participation in technical meetings with experts and regarding the proposed content and scheduling of technical assistance missions) and to manage the exchange of data with the Mediterranean partner countries, along with the dissemination of Mediterranean statistics at the EU level. The implementation of the objectives of MEDSTAT III is delegated by EuropeAid to a subcontractor (in this case, an executive agency supported by an international consortium that includes national statistical institutes from EU Member States and from partner countries). The role of the consortium is to mobilise experienced professionals (i.e. team leaders, key experts and short-term experts) and to manage the organisation and the performance of the tasks at each phase of the project.

Each of the Mediterranean partner countries appoints a National Chief Coordinator, as well as National Sector Coordinators and Task Force members, all of whom participate in the various phases of the projects. Within the Mediterranean partner countries, the National Statistical Offices are usually the key partners of the MEDSTAT programme, but other Ministries may also be involved, depending on the thematic sector. In order to avoid any overlap with other international statistical cooperation projects, to ensure that the methodological performance complies with international statistical developments and to foster synergies, international organisations participate in a number of the thematic task force meetings. For instance, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has attended Task Force meetings on Agriculture statistics (with a joint workshop on sampling for agricultural censuses and surveys) and the International Energy Agency (IEA) participates in debates on methodological issues regarding Energy statistics. In addition, the World Bank and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) support the MED-HIMS initiative on migration statistics.

How does MEDSTAT III work?

The compilation and exchange of statistical data is a complex process that encompasses a series of actions which need to follow strict guidelines and rules. Therefore, it is necessary to have a controlling body, called the Task Force, which oversees the entire process. Separate Task Forces, co-chaired by the European Commission and the MED countries, were set up for each priority thematic sector. Its role has been to ensure that the sector work programmes are technically relevant and meet the requirements of the MEDSTAT programme. The content of the programmes can be regional, sub-regional or country-specific. Once a specific sector work programme has been approved, various tools can be used to reach the agreed objectives. Key experts and short-term experts visit Mediterranean partner countries to provide technical assistance. They assist the partner countries in identifying the statistical training needs. They also help to implement training programmes along with the training of potential trainers, necessary to improve the capacity of a statistical office to develop its own future training programme. Study visits in EU Member States and partner countries are organised and numerous fora (workshops, working groups, and the forum of statisticians) are maintained in order to share experiences, discuss practices and perform methodological work.

Outcomes

All the MEDSTAT programmes have proven efficient, particularly in extending the statistical capacity of the Mediterranean partner countries. They have reinforced the role of statistics in these countries and prompted them to become committed to making the data more transparent and easily available. A communication and visibility plan (CVP) has been set up to exchange views regarding the results of MEDSTAT III so far (MEDSTAT III project website, MEDSTAT III E-newsletters and publication) and improve the dissemination of the data on ENP-South countries collected and published by Eurostat. This makes governments, policy-makers and all other users more aware of the fact that high-quality statistics can be very useful in any given decision-making process. The MEDSTAT programmes have greatly enhanced the human and technical capability in producing relevant, timely and high quality statistics in the various thematic sectors. In addition, substantial progress has been made in terms of the transfer of knowledge, improved quality of statistics, data exchanges and registered publications.

Knowledge transfer in statistics

Regional and sub-regional events (such as workshops, study visits and training courses) help to disseminate the best practices in all aspects of the data life cycle and in each priority thematic sector. Examples are agriculture statistics (e.g. a study visit about using GIS as a tool for censuses and a workshop on the harmonization of concepts in agricultural statistics); energy statistics (e.g. a study visit about elaborating renewable energy and energy balances); migration statistics (e.g. a workshop to strengthen the use of administrative data); social statistics (e.g. a study visit about the methods for measuring and analysing informal employment and a workshop on the harmonisation of methodologies and social indicators with international standards); trade statistics (e.g. a workshop on best practices and data validation); transport statistics (e.g. a study visit on the collection and production of statistics on multimodal transport).

Improved quality of statistics

The quality of statistical information is a key objective of all statistical systems. Providing quality data is also a key concern of the MEDSTAT programme. In this respect, MEDSTAT has planned specific activities (mainly technical assistance or workshops) in each priority thematic sector to improve the quality of statistics. Key or short-term experts are delegated to help the countries to adopt better data collection tools (such as the improvement of the design of questionnaires), to implement international standards in data processing and data analysis, etc. Technical assistance has, for instance, been provided to improve price statistics and to validate the agricultural census data, to improve the quality of data for Energy balances and for Energy efficiency indicators, and to set up the training in the data processing of household survey data.

Data exchanges with Mediterranean partner countries and publications

Data exchanges between the Mediterranean partner countries and Eurostat, and the dissemination of data in the Mediterranean countries form the most visible output of the MEDSTAT programme. Every year, Eurostat distributes questionnaires in the partner countries to collect data on agriculture, balance of payments, environment, external trade, national accounts, prices, social statistics, tourism and transport. The questionnaires are then sent back to Eurostat using the secure EDAMIS data exchange tool. There are a number of validation tools which allow Eurostat to check the consistency and the plausibility of the data. Any issues are flagged immediately and require a response from the data provider. As a result, Eurostat and the partner country in question co-operate to correct the data. Once the final data sets are established and validated, they are then made publicly available within the Eurostat database. Further publications are then made available, free-to-view and download, from Eurostat's webpages: pocketbooks, leaflets and analytical Statistics in Focus, country profiles and Statistics Explained articles. A few of these are also available, at cost, in paper format.

Further Eurostat information