SDDS and Dissemination of Statistical Information to a Broader Range of Users

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SDDS and Dissemination of Statistical Information
to a Broader Range of Users

• SIAP-UNECE Training Course on New Challenges of
  Economic Statistics for Central Asian
  countriesTehran, Iran 19 October 2008
• Petteri Baer, Regional Adviser, UNECE

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GDDS and SDDS

• General Data Dissemination System
• Basic Basic information on economic, financial
  and socio-demographic data
• With a standardized content
• Provided with regular intervals
• Service and follow-up provided by IMF
• Special Data Dissemination System
• Same story but more detailed and demanding

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Custodian OrganizationInternational Monetary
Fund (IMF)

• The IMF monitors the worlds economies, lends to
  members states in economic difficulty and
  provides technical assistance
• The GDDS assists data-producing agencies to take
  control of statistical development programs in a
  structured manner

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Why SDDS?

• Starting from 1996
• The SDDS was established by the IMF to guide
  members that have, or that might seek, access to
  international capital markets in the provision of
  their economic and financial data to the public
• Both the GDDS and the SDDS are expected to
  support the availability of timely and
  comprehensive statistics and therefore contribute
  to the pursuit of sound macroeconomic policies.

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Main Dimensions of SDDS

• The data coverage, periodicity, and timeliness
• Access by the public
• Integrity of the disseminated data and
• Quality of the disseminated data.
• All are important components when we think of
  dissemination of statistical information
• MetadataUser relations

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Main content of SDDS

• Development in the Real Sector
• 10 components
• Development in the Fiscal Sector
• 12 components
• Development in the Financial Sector
• 12 components
• Development in the External Sector
• 26 components
• Population

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CIS-Countries, whose Statistical System have
subscribed to SDDS

• Armenia
• Belarus
• Kazakhstan
• Kyrgyz Republic
• Russian Federation
• Ukraine

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Main idea Reporting to an International
Organization??

• Well, yes and no
• Strict regularity
• Clear periodicity ? reliability
• Stable content ? reliability
• Metadata along ? clearness, methodological
  soundness
• Control and alarming by IMF, if troubles
• ? improving the service ability of the
  NSO

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Support (1)

• Training by and in IMF
• Support for the construction of web sites for
  economic statistics by IMF
• User satisfaction surveys on a semi-regular basis
  
• ROSC
• Fairly small sample size
• But important user groups

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Support (2)

• Strict follow-up and monitoring by the IMF
  Headquarters
• Implementation of disciplined dissemination
  practices, necessary for development of
• Trust and reliability
• Good service ability
• Independence of the NSO
• Link to the UN Fundamental Principles of Official
  Statistics, where UN and UNECE are custodian
  organizations

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What is a Good Service Ability?

• Different target groups will need different kinds
  of ready made information
• Some target groups will need mainly customized
  information
• Analytic materials, Good visual presentations
• What are the main target groups for Economic
  Statistics?
• What are the main media of communication?

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What is a Good Service Ability? (2)

• The need of a Broad Dissemination Strategy
• Timely economic statistics A great possibility
  of Contact Building for the National Statistical
  Agency!
• But in close and clear relation to all this
• There is a need to have resources to do produce
  timely economic statistics
• The biggest gap Timely Short-Term Economic
  Statistics
• Evidence-based decision making needs to have a
  good understanding of the economic development
• In general
• Different industries
• Different regions
• Internationally
• In relation to export and import

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A Problem- as posed in a Pretoria Expert Group
Seminar in 2003

• Statisticians like to talk to one another in
  mysterious ways and with a time clock which runs
  10 times slower than everyone else's
• ? We have to communicate better!
• ? We have to imagine ourselves into the position
  of the potential users of our information!

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Four important groups to provide services to

• Decision makers in big enterprises and
  industries
• The people making decisions, related to economic
  development in the government
• The media
• The general public, NGOs, politicians
• They are connected
• Politicians need votes from the public
• Governments are / should be accountable

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Often Encountered Public Perceptions of important
things

• Health care
• Schools
• Medicines
• Roads
• Water
• Crime prevention
• Statistics????

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Publicity may sometimes be tough!

• Statistics often tends to attract hostile media
  coverage
• Why does it take so long?
• My own perception is different!
• Lies, Big lies, Statistics!

Any votes for the Census?
But what is the alternativeto providing better
publicity?
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Strategies for the future (1)

• Take publicity seriously
• Make a good plan of what will be published
• Publication calendar
• Regular Media/Press releases
• Press Officer
• Press Conferences from time to time
• but not too often!
• Also critical media to always be invited!
• Cost plan and budget for publicity activities
• Follow up on media appearance both quantities
  and attitudes

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Strategies for the future (2)

• The importance of good statistical information
• How can resources be allocated if basic
  information on the economic development is based
  on guesses and (too) old information?
• Attracting investments, doing good business,
  developing economic activities needs good
  infrastructure reliable official statistics is
  basic
• If the denominators of Gross Domestic Product,
  Millennium Development Goals are wrong, no
  information is reliableMonitoring donor
  activities needs good basic background
  information
• Monitoring donor activities needs good basic
  background information

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The media is your partner

• In disseminating the main results of all your
  work on statistics
• In making problematic issues known
• Help the media to be well informed!

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The importance of good contact information

• User lists
• Existing customers and contacts
• Regular and heavy sers of economical statistics
• Contact directories
• Feedback contacts
• ? Contact / Customer database
• ? Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

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You will profit much from active feedback

• Having more feedback will help you to develop
  your services
• Interaction with critical customers will help you
  in having a positive pressure on performing
  better
• A demanding customer is like a grain of sand
  within the mussel. It doesnt feel good but the
  result may be a beautiful pearl!

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The efforts you will make will be rewarded,
because

• Only used statistical information is useful
  statistical information!
• Thank you for your attention!
• petteri.baer_at_unece.org