Transcript Presentation:

Seminar on the Evolution of National Statistical Systems
Panel Discussion: Prospects and Risks for the Future:
How to Manage Uncertainties?
Eduardo Pereira Nunes
(President of the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics - IBGE)
Wasmália Bivar
(Director of Surveys - IBGE)
Zélia Bianchini
(Deputy Director of Surveys - IBGE)
Commemorative Event for the 60th Anniversary of the United Nations Statistical Commission –
United Nations, New York - February 23, 2007
Outline
• Issues concerning the challenges for the
National Statistical Offices - NSOs
• Focus on Strengthening Statistical Capacity
of the NSOs and the role of United Nations
and other international organizations
Prospects and risks
• New demands for information to be provided by NSOs
– the advance of democracy in the world
– the organization of several segments of civil society claiming
for their rights
– the increase of globalization and international commercial
agreements
– the impact of technological changes in the economy and the
society
• A challenge faced by the NSOs is to produce a larger,
more diversified and consistent set of relevant
statistics based on statistical principles and practices
and continuously evaluate the relevance of their
statistical production.
Prospects and risks
• The Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics - IBGE held in 2006, on its 70th anniversary, the Fifth National
Conference of Statistics
• At this forum was discussed the scope of the National
Statistical System with producers and users, specially on
– the improvement of traditional topics related to statistical
production
– the increasing relevant new topics
• time use, citizenship, disability, human rights and violence, culture, tourism,
information and communication technology (ICT), food security, etc.
Prospects and risks
• An important question is the increase in the utilization
of statistical information as a parameter for public
policies and their monitoring
– It may help to strengthen the statistical system; but in many
cases it involves some risks
– As in other countries, in Brazil the annual population
estimates for municipalities are used to define the
distribution of public resources: this is a legal constitutional
duty of IBGE.
– The accuracy of these estimates, however, does not always
attend the requirements of the users.
• Situation that demands a proper use of official
statistics
How to manage uncertainties or contradictions
between NSOs and users?
• How can we strengthen the use of structural data?
– Although the use of statistics has grown considerably, the
focus goes on strongly on short-term statistics, mainly in
economic statistics.
– A good example is the larger use of short-term indicators of
national accounts while the analytical potentialities of the
whole set of accounts of the system is little explored or
unknown by the general public.
How to manage uncertainties?
• Proper use of official statistics
– the discussion on the problem of different data resulting from
different methodologies used by international organizations and the
one’s produced by the NSOs
– Example - the population statistics as a pillar of national statistics - used
to calculate a large number of indicators to monitor social and economic
development
– Brazil is going through an important demographic transition and changes
in the social security system are being discussed
– IBGE participate of this discussion due to the population and life
expectancy estimates, which are not consistent with those published by
the United Nations for the same years
– All methodology used by IBGE is coherent with the system of the United
Nations even with contradictions
– However the discrepancies between the data produced by the UN
Population Division and by the IBGE causes big problems because
depending on the denominator, the indicator meets or not the
expectations (MDGs may be reached or not) .
How to manage uncertainties or conflicts between
NSOs and international agencies?
• The harmonization of the estimates represents an
important step towards the consolidation of national
statistical systems and the credibility of the National
Statistical Offices – specially IBGE.
How to manage uncertainties or conflicts between
NSOs and international agencies?
• Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics
Principle 9: “The use by statistical agencies in each country of international concepts,
classifications and methods promotes the consistency and efficiency of statistical
systems at all official levels.”
Principle 10: ”Bilateral and multilateral cooperation in statistics contributes to the
improvement of systems of official statistics in all countries.”
• Decisions brought on the 37th Session of Statistical Commission
“Recommended that international agencies turn to data imputation only when country
data were not available and that should be done in consultation with countries and
through a fully transparent methodology;
Recognized that the mechanisms for reporting data from national to international
statistical systems should be improved.”
• An example of conflict: Population Estimates for Brazil
– International Comparison Program (another example)
Contradiction
• Brazil always sticks to international recommendations
• Example: Release on internet of the site with
comparative data on countries:
países@ (www.ibge.gov.br)
– On this link the population data used by IBGE for all 192
countries are from United Nations Population Division
• However the population estimates of IBGE – the
National Institute of Statistics - for the same year are
different from those released by UN Population
Division
• Nevertheless this same data from IBGE were
elaborated with UNFPA support, in joint publication
UNFPA and IBGE.
Brazilian Population 2005
Source
UN Population Division
Brazilian Population
2005
186.405.000
IBGE
184.184.264
UNFPA - IBGE
184.184.264
How to manage uncertainties?
• Efforts made by international organizations in
order to obtain information on national level
should be focused on the construction of
continuous capacity of the NSOs.
• Cooperative work among international agencies
and countries including the development of their
capacities.
The permanent effort to maintain and improve the
national statistical system can not weaken the
NSOs
How to manage these uncertainties or conflicts?
• The use by international agencies of data
produced by the NSOs is a positive element
• Besides, the emphasis on harmonization and
joint work with international agencies
Examples of cooperation
• International collaboration on programs and projects,
such as:
– The International Comparison Program
– The Joint Population Census for Mercosul, Bolivia and Chile
– The Monitoring of the Millennium Goals
• These are excellent opportunities to consolidate
strategies for the strengthening of the NSOs and
increasing the credibility of their work.
How to manage uncertainties?
• Methodological frameworks developed by international
organizations are important tools for the NSOs but its
implementation requires a considerable amount of
time and resources.
• It is important the evaluation of ways of
implementation of the international recommendations
by NSOs, and the harmonization between data of the
NSO’s and of international agencies.
How to manage uncertainties?
• The coherence between the statistical data
produced by the NSOs and the international
agencies is fundamental for assuring the
credibility of the National Statistical Systems.