Inter-agency Expert Group Meeting on MDG
Indicators
Geneva, 29 September -
1 October 2004
Statement by Mrs. Brigita
Schmögnerová,
Executive Secretary
I would like to welcome all the international
organizations and the countries that agreed
to participate in this 6th meeting of the
Inter-Agency Expert Group on MDG indicators.
I would like to congratulate you for the
excellent work you did in producing the
analytical part for three Secretary General
Reports on the implementation of the Millennium
Declaration. I know it was hard work and
I would like to take this opportunity to
thank DESA and in particular UNSD for the
great support that they continue to give
in the coordination of this group.
The Goals addressed in
the Millennium Declaration marked an historic
moment for the United Nations. In addition
to the common priorities unanimously expressed
by 189 countries, for the first time, the
UN Secretariat, its funds and programmes,
the specialized agencies and the Bretton
Woods institutions are focusing on a common
set of specific goals. Among the various
task forces and groups that were established
to work toward these common goals, this
group is an example of how well different
international organizations can work together
once we all share the same objectives. The
task of this group is important for assuring
that the annual SG report on the progress
achieved at world and regional level toward
the MDG is based on solid and relevant statistics.
But the group has additional responsibilities.
Many organizations at national, regional
and international level increasingly rely
on the deliberations of this group on issues
related to quality and availability of the
data, new methods and new indicators to
monitor progress toward the MDG.
This meeting has a double
role: First to discuss the preparation of
the Secretary-General’s 2005 comprehensive
report on the implementation of the Millennium
Declaration, its objectives and structure,
and second – as an inherent part of
the preparation – issues linked to
MDG indicators, data availability, data
quality and global and regional trends.
The 2005 SG report marks an important phase
in achieving 2015 MDGs, as it should indicate
where governments and the international
community should strengthen their efforts
in order to meet their Millennium commitments
by 2015 as time is running very fast.
UNECE, as one of the UN
regional commissions is very pleased to
host this meeting. This is the first time
that all 5 regional commissions are present
at this kind of meeting. We believe that
regional policies have a unique role in
implementing the MDG and that the monitoring
of MDG at regional level is important. It
allows cross-country comparisons and is
helpful in formulating adequate regional
policies and measuring their efficacy. In
this way we can fill the existing gap between
the national and the global level. This
was also stressed at a recent meeting of
the EC-ESA in New York where all the executive
secretaries of the regional commissions,
the Under-Secretary General of DESA, the
Executive Directors of UNDP, UNFPA and UNICEF
agreed that regional commissions can substantially
contribute to monitoring and analysing progress
in achieving the MDGs. In UNECE we have
started collaborating with the UNDP Regional
Center in Bratislava in the field of statistics
and indicators for the regional report that
UNDP is planning for 2005 and we have begun
consultations with the UNCEF regional office
to coordinate our efforts in monitoring
MDG in the region. I regret that I cannot
welcome to the meeting our partners from
UNDP Regional Center in Bratislava. I believe
that we could further extend our cooperation
in the preparation of a Regional Report
on MDG. An excellent example of synergy
of the two organizations – UNDP and
UNESCAP – is the Regional Report on
MDG in Asia-Pacific produced by UNESCAP
in collaboration with the Regional UNDP
Center in Asia-Pacific.
In addition to the partnership
with UNDP Regional Center for the forthcoming
MDG regional report, ECE has a longer plan
in the field of MDG statistics. We are consulting
with our regional partners (UNDP and UNICEF)
to set up an MDG database for the region
and to strengthen the statistical capacity
of countries to produce MDG indicators.
For the database, the idea would be to use
data from national statistical offices and
national MDG reports and present indicators
related to MDG that could highlight some
of the key issues relevant for our region
on a regular basis. These are only preliminary
ideas and we hope we could report more on
this at the next meeting of the inter-agency
expert group.
In this meeting I see two
main roles of regional commissions. The
first one is to bring the regional perspective
in the reporting of world progress, both
in terms of providing regional perspectives
and making sure that regional dimensions
are considered in the selection of new indicators.
The Millennium Declaration and its associated
goals have different implications in different
regions. The global set of indicators to
monitor the MDG is sometimes not relevant
for some regions (and may prevent measuring
progress related to MDG. I think that we
need to take this into consideration when
regional statistics are reported in the
global SG report and make efforts to highlight
key regional issues. I hope that during
this meeting you could discuss how to better
reflect the regional dimension in the 2005
comprehensive report.
The second role that I
see for regional commissions in this group
is to facilitate the relationships between
specialized agencies and national statistical
offices, in both directions: supporting
the specialized agencies in the collection
and estimation of selected regional data
and, on the other hand, offering the national
statistical offices a direct access to the
global process. Having to deal with a smaller
number of countries, regional commissions
have a closer relationship with national
statistical offices. In addition, they collect
data on a broader range of topics. We have
to take full advantage of this special link
to facilitate the whole MDG reporting exercise.
In this aspect I am pleased
to see that it has become a custom to invite
representatives of national statistical
offices to meetings of this inter-agency
expert group. As everybody knows the role
of national statistical offices is a key
one in the provision of good quality statistics
and coordination of national statistical
systems and we as a group of regional and
international agencies should carefully
listen to their messages when it comes to
the selection of indicators or the adoption
of standard methods and definitions. Regional
and global statistics should reflect at
the extent it is possible the data that
are provided by the countries’ coordinated
official statistics. Any improvement in
the quality and availability of statistics
relevant for the MDG can only go through
national statistical offices. Therefore,
they should be consulted in any decision
that relates to the selection of new indicators
or the adoption of methods to estimate data
for the global monitoring of MDG. They should
also be the key players in establishing
national machineries to regularly monitoring
the MDG at country level. One of UNECE’s
strengths is the functioning network with
all national statistical offices of the
60 members of the Conference of European
Statisticians.
I would like to conclude
wishing you a productive three days of discussion.
I would like to thank once again DESA for
the preparatory work done and I look forward
to hearing about the results of this meeting.
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