The Perspective of EthiopiaBy

Samia ZekariaDirector General

Central Statistical AgencyIFPRI 2020 International Conference , 15-17 May 2014, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Why build institutional capacity? It is a way of creating good governance and integrity as it

pursues the development of effective and efficient institutional arrangements to establish a reliable information, monitoring and measurement system.

It is to be noted that sustainability of capacity and continued development of an institution is crucial to carry out its critical functions reasonably well in a sustained manner.

Requirements to build institutional capacity

An enabling policy environment and a realistic investment to create, strengthen and sustain human resource development of the National Statistics System.

Legal framework to develop effective institutions that produce reliable and timely information for monitoring and evaluation of an implemented program.

Building statistical capacity is also one of the requirements to improve information, monitoring, and measurement systems of a country.

What is Statistical Capacity? Statistical capacity is the ability of countries to meet

user needs for good quality statistics – usually those statistics that are considered to be “official” (i.e. those statistics produced by governments as a public good).

Statistical capacity building is sometimes part of broader programs (e.g. budget support, health, education),which cannot be easily identified and/or quantified, since statistics are not always identified as a sector in their own right. (P21, 2006)

Indicators of Statistical Capacity Building (SCB)

The SCB indicators measure the statistical conditions in a country through: Quantitative indicators cover resources (domestically and

externally funded annual budget, staff, and equipment), inputs (survey and administrative data sources), and statistical products;

Qualitative indicators focus on relevant aspects of environment (institutional and organizational), of core statistical processes, and of statistical products.

Status of Agricultural and Nutrition Statistics in Africa

• Despite the importance of the agriculture in African economies and societies, agricultural and nutrition statistics systems in many countries are among the weakest components of national statistical systems.

• Mostly limited resources contributed to weak capacity for producing agricultural and nutrition statistics resulted poor data quality in many African countries.

One of the most important factors contributing to the weakness of agricultural statistics system in many countries is that agricultural statistics is not adequately integrated into the National Statistical System, and the National Strategies for the Development of Statistics (NSDS)do not adequately cover the agricultural sector.

The current result agenda of policy makers is data intensive which requires highly integrated , consistent and timely data , in other words better statistics.

Status of Agricultural Statistics in Africa

Training for Statistical Capacity Building

To make training more relevant for strengthening statistical capacity development, there is a need for enhanced collaboration between academic and official statistician and revision of curricula to take official statistics on board.

E-learning, peer review, experience sharing with others are also important aspects of capacity building in the National Statistics System.

Institutional Capacity DevelopmentEthiopian - Context

Human Resource Development

Capacity Building of statistician is accorded highest priority by the CSA management in facilitating training opportunities in both national and international universities to attend Masters level courses, seminars, and workshops conducted by international forum.

Building statistical capacity of middle and junior staff members is essential to bridge the efficiency gap and to promote staff harmony.

Institutional Capacity Development Ethiopian- Context

Statistical Infrastructure With donors’ support all 25 Branch Statistical Offices

of the CSA have been strengthened and equipped with computers to decentralize data entry.

Acquiring new technology such as Scanning Technology and IT equipment have improved the timeliness and the quality of statistics data.

Institutional Capacity Development Ethiopian- Context (cont’d)

• The introduction of hand held computer (PDA) and CAPI for data collection proved to be very efficient in the production of price data on timely fashion in Ethiopia.

• The utilization of GPS for area measurement in agricultural statistics has also proved to be cost effective and efficient in improving the data quality as well as timeliness.

• Equal importance has been given for metadata documentation and archiving to improve statistical data dissemination systems of the country.

Collaborative works to build institutional capacity- Ethiopian Context

The Agency has been working with different institutions to build its capacity by way of improving survey instruments, methodology, and analytical capacity of its staff members.

Some examples are: Panel Surveys on productive safety net of Ethiopia- IFPRI Food security and vulnerability of households- WFP Rural Socio economic surveys – World bank Research on land, soil and production measurement experiment through

methodological validation - World Bank

The benefit of these collaborative works in building institutional capacity is enormous in acquiring cutting edge new technology that improved the overall capacity to produce timely and quality statistical data.

What do we share?Lessons we share to effectively utilize the

efforts of building statistical capacity are:

The CSA always tries to own the techniques and the know how obtained through capacity building, and empower its staff members to utilize it.

The leadership gives due attention and exerts a lot of efforts to improve progressively its agricultural and nutrition statistics data through time.

What do we share? The Ethiopian Government allocates annual budget

for statistical activity as one its important sectors and utilizes the information for its policy formulation.

Continuous staff training at masters level of at least 15 personnel each year both locally and abroad as capacity building components to build its human resources.

Realization and implementation of new technologies and IT infrastructure for improved statistical activities.

Challenges Staff retention,

Not being autonomous from Civil Service System

Inadequate Office Infrastructure at HQs and Branch Statistical Offices to improve staff productivity.

Thank you

Amesegenalehu