Transcript Update on Data Quality Activies at the UN by Alexander Blackburn

Alex Blackburn
UNSD
10th Oslo Group Meeting
10-13 May 2016
Aguascalientes, Mexico
http://unstats.un.org/unsd/energy
Overview
 NQAF
 Current work on generic UN agency QAF
 Quality reports of UN publications
 CountryData (a project for the MDG indicators)
 SDMX for the SDGs
NQAF
 In 2012, UNSC endorsed the generic national quality
assurance framework template and encouraged
countries to use it.
 The template provides a structure that countries can
use for their own quality assurance systems
NQAF
 NQAF has links to other quality frameworks (StatCan,
IMF, GSBPM etc)
 Structure should be familiar to Oslo Group members,
incorporated into the data quality chapters of IRES
and ESCM
 Will likely be on the next UNSC agenda for discussion
UN System Generic QAF
 Development of a Generic UN Quality Assurance
Framework - UNSD is a major contributor to those
efforts, working with the chief statisticians of the UN
system
 Relates to data quality and accountability across the
UN system: will allow a common assessment of quality
across very diverse areas of statistics
 Expected to be made public, to show the UN
practicing what we preach
Quality Reports of UN Publications
 Flagship UN publications such as the Statistical
Yearbook, Statistical Pocketbook, Monthly Bulletin of
Statistics, UnData have quality reports prepared (soon
to be shared)
 Makes the publications team accountable to data
users, countries, agencies (and internal stakeholders)
countryData
 A tool to let countries share their MDG development
data and compare against those of international
organisations
 SDMX made data sharing easy and led to higher
quality
 Could be considered a ”discrepancy analysis”,
highlighting differences between country data and
agency sources, with explanation. Allows data users to
make informed choices
http://data.un.org/countryData
IAEG-SDGs work on SDMX
 The IAEG-SDG agreed to establish a SDMX working
group on SDG data AND metadata
 Expected to increase quality by removing processing
errors, reducing the response burden
 Metadata can describe the quality of data, but are a
quality component themselves
 Creation of a MSD should be transformative in improving
data quality
Summary
 UNSD (data dissemination branch) has various
projects in data quality that are not energy specific
 If the Oslo Group wants do something on data quality,
UNSD (industry & energy stats section) can be the
bridge
Thanks
Questions?