Archive:MEDSTAT programme
Article from April 2014.
This article forms part of a set of background articles which introduces the international statistical cooperation activities of the European Union (EU) with non-member countries and focuses on cooperation with Mediterranean countries in the context of the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP-South). The principal vehicle by which the EU provided assistance on statistics to ENP-South countries since 1996 was the multi-country MEDSTAT programme, which expired in 2013.
Countries concerned
The MEDSTAT I and II programmes covered 10 Mediterranean countries: Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Palestine, Syria, Tunisia and Turkey. The MEDSTAT III programme covered nine countries, since Turkey had become an EU candidate country. Cooperation with Syria during the course of the programme was suspended, while it should be noted that Libya was not an active participant in the MEDSTAT programme.
Brief history
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 policymaking work. Euro-Mediterranean statistical cooperation was launched by the Barcelona declaration and the Euro-Mediterranean partnership (1995–96) with the aim of promoting '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 this regional programme for statistical cooperation. A number of visits to the Mediterranean countries helped to establish a list of priority topics to be covered, and these were approved during the Naples seminar in June 1996.
MEDSTAT I (1996–2003) — the first cooperation programme
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 EU to monitor the development of a free trade area (for manufactured goods) in the whole Mediterranean basin. The programme covered six statistical topics (referred to within the project as thematic sectors): international trade in goods and services, transport, migration, tourism, the environment and national accounts. Two cross-cutting activities (training and information systems) were included in the programme’s operational range. Between 2003 and 2006, a second project (MEDSTAT-Env II) focused on environmental statistics.
MEDSTAT II (2006–09) — improving the quality of statistical services
MEDSTAT II was mainly intended to improve the quality of statistical services through the consolidation of Euro-Mediterranean statistical cooperation. A further objective was to foster the development of statistical information systems in the Mediterranean countries, in other words to improve the quality of the compilation and exchange of statistical data between the EU and the Mediterranean countries. These joint efforts were centred on:
- the promotion of the production of harmonised statistics with respect to international standards, in other words collecting timely, relevant and high-quality data, necessary for political decision-making and ensuring good governance;
- the provision of assistance to the national statistical systems of the Mediterranean beneficiary countries in terms of institutional and inter-institutional operations, equipment and human resources;
- the promotion of the transparency of statistical activities which would make it easier for a growing number of users to find the data they were looking for.
Following an assessment of the statistical situation in each beneficiary country (country statistical situation report — CSSR), the European Commission, in cooperation with each of the Mediterranean beneficiary countries, identified priorities regarding necessary actions. As a result, in addition to the six statistical topics covered by MEDSTAT I, the scope of MEDSTAT II was extended to include the following topics: social, agriculture and energy statistics.
MEDSTAT III (2010–13) — promoting evidence-based policymaking
The most recent programme, MEDSTAT III, built on the achievements of the previous two programmes and aimed to consolidate and further strengthen statistical cooperation. MEDSTAT III was launched in April 2010, initially for a duration of two years, with a planned budget of EUR 4 million. Soon afterwards, however, the European Commission decided to extend the programme to the end of 2013 and to provide it with additional funding.
The overall objective of MEDSTAT III was 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 aimed to consolidate and expand further the progress achieved during the previous two programmes by providing users with a wider range of quality data for six priority topics — agriculture, energy, migration, social statistics, transport, and international trade and balance of payments statistics — as well as the cross-cutting activities of training and dissemination.
Beyond MEDSTAT III
Directors of the national statistical authorities of the ENP-South countries and representatives of the European Commission have discussed the future form and scope of the Euro-Mediterranean cooperation in statistics after the conclusion of the MEDSTAT programme. The agreed strategy for future cooperation has four interrelated objectives:
- continuous improvement in the quality of official statistics;
- improved technical and management skills in the national statistical authorities through comprehensive training;
- users empowered with the data they need to address social and economic issues;
- a sustainable framework to design, implement and steer the cooperation.
Working groups have been set up for a number of fields: business statistics, energy, the labour market, migration, international trade and transport, as well as for cross-cutting issues such as training and quality in statistics. The quality in statistics working group will be led by Eurostat and will have annual meetings and workshops to promote the adoption of the European statistics Code of Practice, quality standards and a quality framework. The other working groups will each be led by one or more of the ENP-South countries.
The management for the strategy will be composed of a forum of Euro-Mediterranean statisticians, including representatives of the ENP-South countries and the European Commission, as well as other participants from EU and EFTA Member States and international organisations. This forum will meet annually and will be responsible for approving the work programmes for each working group and promoting coordination with other donors.
Resources and tools
Roles of the various partners
The MEDSTAT III programme involved various actors in the EU and in the Mediterranean beneficiary countries. The Directorate-General for Development and Cooperation — EuropeAid — was the contracting authority of the programme. The role of Eurostat was to provide technical advice to EuropeAid (for instance, through participation in meetings and regarding the proposed content and scheduling of technical assistance visits), to manage the exchange of data with the Mediterranean beneficiary countries, and to disseminate Mediterranean statistics on behalf of the EU. The implementation of the objectives of MEDSTAT III was delegated by EuropeAid to a subcontractor, an executive agency supported by an international consortium that included national statistical authorities from EU Member States and beneficiary countries.
Each of the Mediterranean beneficiary countries appointed a national chief coordinator, as well as national sector coordinators and task force members, all of whom participated in the various phases of the project. Within the beneficiary countries, the national statistical authorities were usually the key partners of the MEDSTAT programme, but other Ministries were also involved, depending on the field of statistics concerned. In order to avoid any overlap with other international statistical cooperation projects, to ensure that the methodological performance complied with international statistical developments, and to foster synergies, international organisations participated in a number of the task force meetings for specific fields. For instance, the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) attended task force meetings on agriculture statistics (with a joint workshop on sampling for agricultural censuses and surveys) and the International Energy Agency (IEA) participated in debates on methodological issues regarding energy statistics. In addition, the World Bank and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) supported the MED-HIMS initiative on migration statistics.
How did 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 was necessary to have a controlling body, called the task force, which oversaw the entire process. Separate meetings of the task force, co-chaired by the European Commission and the beneficiary countries, were set up for each priority field. Their roles were to ensure that the work programmes for each field were technically relevant and met the requirements of the MEDSTAT programme. The content of the programmes could be regional, sub-regional or country-specific.
Once a specific work programme for a field had been approved, various tools could be used to reach the agreed objectives. Key experts and short-term experts visited the beneficiary countries to provide technical assistance. They assisted the beneficiaries to identify particular training needs. They also helped to implement training programmes along with the training of potential trainers, necessary to improve the capacity of a statistical authority to develop its own future training programmes. Study visits to EU Member States and beneficiary countries were organised and numerous regional fora (workshops, working groups, and the forum of statisticians) were maintained in order to share experiences, discuss practices and perform methodological work.
Outcomes
All the MEDSTAT programmes proved to be efficient, particularly in extending the statistical capacity of beneficiary countries. They reinforced the role of statistics in these countries and prompted them to commit to making their data more easily available. A communication and visibility plan (CVP) was set up to exchange views regarding the results of MEDSTAT III (MEDSTAT publications) and to improve the release of statistical data on ENP-South countries. This made governments, policymakers and other users more aware of the fact that high-quality statistics can be very useful in the decision-making process. The MEDSTAT programmes greatly enhanced the human and technical capability of producing relevant, timely and high-quality statistics for the various topics. In addition, substantial progress was made in terms of the transfer of knowledge, improved quality of statistics, data exchange and registered publications.
Knowledge transfer in statistics
Regional and sub-regional events (such as workshops, study visits and training courses) helped to disseminate best practices in all aspects of the data life cycle and in each priority field. Examples included:
- agriculture statistics — a study visit about using GIS as a tool for censuses and a workshop on the harmonisation of concepts in agricultural statistics;
- energy statistics — a study visit about compiling renewable energy statistics and energy balances;
- migration statistics — a workshop to strengthen the use of administrative data;
- social statistics — 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;
- international trade statistics — a workshop on best practices and data validation;
- transport statistics — 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 measure of all statistical systems. Providing high quality data was also a key element of the MEDSTAT programme. In this respect, MEDSTAT planned specific activities (mainly technical assistance and workshops) in each priority field to improve the quality of statistics. Key or short-term experts were delegated to help the countries, for example to adopt better data collection tools (such as the improvement of the design of questionnaires) or to implement international standards in data processing and data analysis. Technical assistance was, for example, provided to improve price statistics, to validate the agricultural census data, to improve the quality of data for energy balances and energy efficiency indicators, and to set-up training for processing household survey data.
See also
- International statistical cooperation — online publication