Project Summary:

The project aims to strengthen the national statistical system through improvement of collection, dissemination and use of socio-economic statistical data. It helps the Government to advance on its European integration agenda on harmonising of official statistics with EU and international standards, as well as to integrate gender-equality and human rights based approach in statistics.

Due to Project’s intervention, public authorities and the civil society have more complete and more reliable disaggregated statistical data to be used for planning and policy-making, for better targeting of concerned population groups, ensuring a sustainable and equitable human and socio-economic development.

Objectives:

• Harmonize national statistics with EU and international statistical requirements and support the development or improvement of statistical methodologies required to measure the implementation of sustainable development targets;
• Strengthen the capacities of the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) and line-ministries (responsible for official and administrative data) to produce qualitative disaggregated statistics (by sex, age, territory, other dimensions);
• Foster better cooperation on data quality control mechanisms between NBS and other data producers (central and local public administrations responsible for official and administrative data);
• Improve data availability through optimization of data dissemination systems, practices and tools, which meet the needs of data users and are presented in a user-friendly format;
• Implement institutional mechanisms for training and development of abilities and knowledge for data producers and users (civil servants, CSOs, mass-media, academia);
• Improve appropriate use of available statistical data for participatory and evidence-based elaboration, analysis, and monitoring of policies.

Expected results:

• Improved multi-dimensional disaggregated data production by the National Bureau of Statistics and other producers of administrative/official statistics;
• Improved and diversified data dissemination in ‘easy-to-use’ formats and responding to data users’ needs;
• Strengthened statistical literacy and capacities of relevant national actors (civil servants at central and local levels, CSOs, media, academia) to use statistics for evidence-based policy formulation, implementation, monitoring and analysis.

Accomplishments:

• National Bureau of Statistics equipped with (i) recommendations to improve its organizational and personnel structures, aiming at achieving institution’s functional optimization in the context of the public administration reform, (ii) assessment of feasibility to improve in-house statistical literacy and develop data users skills and abilities and possible solutions/options to address this gap; (iii) data quality assurance management plan, (iv) concept on gradual implementation of GIS into national statistics, (v) National Strategy for development of the statistical system (2016-2020) and its Operational Plan;
• Statistical infrastructure (methodologies, statistical toolkits, information flows) assessed, reviewed and harmonised with international/EU standards, good practices and national needs to enable a proper monitoring of national and/or sectorial objectives, strategies, programmes and international commitments, including 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda (20 areas addressed: demography, ICT, research & development, labour time, wage structure and costs, gender pay gap, job vacancies, disability, short-term business statistics, labour accidents, labour migration, education, social protection, justice and criminality, water and air emissions, water supply, sewage and sanitation, gender and territorial statistics, small area deprivation, sustainable development agenda, 2014 Population and Housing Census, SDGs nationalised indicators etc.);
• International standards and the best EU practices applied to national statistics due to strengthening the statisticians’ abilities (Classifier on Economic Activities of Moldova aligned to EU NACE Rev.2 requirements, scenarios for country distribution according to EU NUTS designed, ESSPROS (European System of Integrated Social Protection Statistics) familiarization; compliance with ILO Labour conventions, UN Principles and Recommendations for PHC, application of global metadata for SDGs indicators for assessment of nationalised indicators, etc.);
• National counterparts supported to enhance institutional capacity, to get exposure to the EU/international standards and best practices in statistics, learn from the exchange initiatives, share country’s experience and progress with peers at the international level (overall 50 statisticians participated in 40 missions);
• National capacities on data collection on first-ever explored topics strengthened and applied in practice in order to conduct statistical surveys compliant with EU/international standards and more disaggregated data made available for the research and policy development (about 8 areas/surveys addressed: on social exclusion, time use, violence against women, labour costs, child labour, reconciliation of personal and professional life, women entrepreneurship (2 rounds - 2009, 2018), labour migration, volunteer work, Roma, etc.);
• Capacities and practical skills of statisticians (National Bureau of Statistics, territorial statistical offices) and support staff (interviewers, observers) built to apply new methodologies to conduct statistical surveys on households and enterprises, to apply data quality management tools, to apply R software;
• Better tools, products and practices implemented for statistical data dissemination in ‘user-friendly’ formats aimed to stimulate policy-makers and social partners to analyze and more actively use disaggregated statistics (20 thematic statistical publications, NBS web-page and Statistical databank, users’ metadata and guidelines, GenderPulse.md, communication materials, 15 analytical reports, 29 data-based briefs, 43 data maps, 21 infographs, MDGs data, 1 web platform, etc.);
• Monitoring & Evaluation tools (statistical indicators and methodological guidance) developed or revised to support national or sectorial policy documents and progress tracking, including on SDGs (areas addressed: ICT, gender equality in 8 domains, violence against women, women entrepreneurship, decentralisation and vulnerable groups, disability status, women and men in ICT etc.);
• Dialogue between data producers and data user maintained through periodic users’ satisfaction surveys that measure the progress in the national statistics development and keeps the National Bureau of Statistics updated on changes produced over time in the quality of statistical data, user needs still to be covered, improvements of statistical activity required (3 surveys);
• Statistical literacy skills and abilities of data users built to facilitate the proper use of disaggregated statistical data for evidence-based justification of new policies, monitoring and evaluation, advocacy and lobbying of gender and human right issues, etc. (about 62 round-tables, seminars, trainings, launchings, with at least 25 participants per event, predominantly women, including staff of policy monitoring units and gender focal points in line-ministries, social assistants from LPAs, NGOs, journalist students, media and academia).