Division Current situation

Much needs to be done in developing countries to increase statistical capacity. The overall objective is to support EU external relations policies by providing appropriate and focused statistical technical assistance in order to strengthen statistical capacity in countries benefiting from EU aid. This support must be durable. In this respect, efforts should be made to ensure that statistics form an integral part of national and regional development plans.

The most significant policy element is the increased and explicit focus on poverty reduction in the EC’s development policy, in particular with ACP countries, and especially in Africa. Consequently, statistical cooperation is increasingly focused on strengthening the measurement and monitoring of poverty, with a particular emphasis on the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) indicators.

Technical advice and support is provided in the area of measuring the impact of EU development programmes and with regard to the statistical element of EU regional development programmes in general.

Regional integration is a continuing emphasis of the programme, mirroring the increased moves amongst countries themselves to strengthen their regional structures. Areas for support include multilateral surveillance, improvement of national accounts, price statistics, agricultural statistics, statistics on natural resources and on the pressures on the environment, foreign trade, business statistics and statistical training.

The ESS continues and strengthens its efforts to improve coordination amongst the donor community (i.e. bilateral and multilateral donors). Accordingly, Eurostat and Member States support work, in particular in the context of the OECD/DAC, UN and World Bank, to assess the impact of development cooperation on reaching the MDGs. As such, it plays an active part in the PARIS 21 initiative. In particular, technical cooperation activities stress the importance of a user focus, and promote the value of multi-annual programming.

Main initiatives for 2008 to 2012:

• the visibility of statistics in national and regional development plans will be increased,

• technical advice and scientific support will be provided, where possible, for the conduct of statistical development programmes, in particular at regional level; to support projects with statistical implications and harmonisation of statistics in countries benefiting from EU aid; and to contribute to the assessment of the statistical priorities for the planning and programming of EU statistical cooperation activities,

• particular emphasis, taking into account the gender dimension, will be put on measuring and monitoring poverty, progress on social cohesion, environmental sustainability and the MDG indicators.