Millennium Development Goals: progress and capacity building

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Millennium Development Goalsprogress and
capacity building

• Jessica Gardner
• UNECE Statistical Division
• Expert Group Meeting on MDG Indicators in Central
  Asia
• Astana, Kazakhstan, 5-8 October 2009

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Demand for official statistics

• Internationally agreed development goals
• Reporting and analysis
• Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)
• Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP)
• Common Country Assessment (CCA)
• Human Rights Conventions
• Response to disasters and crises

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(No Transcript)
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• Even within successful countries, there are
  pockets where poverty and hunger are persistently
  high and which will not share the fruits of
  economic growth.
• Particular groups of people suffer higher overall
  incidence of poverty and hunger, including
  children, female-headed households, indigenous
  and tribal peoples and landless populations.
• Achieving the Internationally Agreed Development
  Goals
• Dialogues at the UN Economic and Social Council,
  2005

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Sub-national population change in New Zealand
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• Governments need to enhance their statistical
  and other capacities to enable the monitoring of
  the impact of MDG strategies in different
  segments of their populations
• Achieving the Internationally Agreed Development
  Goals
• Dialogues at the UN Economic and Social Council,
  2005

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• The UN must demonstrate greater alignment with
  national priorities and country systems... and to
  help shape those priorities to reflect
  governments international/global commitments to
  the MDGs and internationally agreed upon
  development goals
• United Nations Development Group, 2009

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Building statistical capacity

• 2005 Assessment of capacity to produce
  MDG-relevant statistics
• 21 countries of Eastern and South-Eastern Europe,
  Caucasus and Central Asia

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Key findings

• Deterioration in quality of data based on
  administrative registers
• Limited capacity to maintain a regular national
  survey programme able to produce MDG statistics
• Very limited capacity to produce MDG data
  disaggregated by sub-population groups
• Lack of a systematic and sustained approach to
  disseminate MDG statistics
• Lack of capacity to produce indicators related to
  HIV/AIDS, access to Information and
  Communications Technology (ICT), slums

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Recommendations

• Review the quality of the data obtained from
  administrative registers
• Streamline the great amount of data produced
  through administrative records
• Develop comprehensive and sustainable national
  survey programmes
• Improve the size and design of household samples
• Conduct the population and housing census
• Improve the dissemination and accessibility of
  MDG-related data