Soon after the MDGs emanated from the Millennium Declaration, the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) forged a partnership on the MDGs, bringing together three major multilateral development agencies to strengthen regional efforts in developing the MDG agenda in Asia and the Pacific. The Statistics Division has played a key role in this tripartite partnership, producing the first regional MDG report in the region in 2005 entitled A future within reach, followed by the MDGs: Progress in Asia and the Pacific 2006. In October of last year the MDGs: Progress in Asia and the Pacific 2007 report was launched, making the latest assessment on how countries in the Asia and the Pacific have moved forward towards achieving the MDGs http://www.mdgasiapacific.org/. Currently, the Statistics Division is working on strengthening the basis for tracking progress on the MDGs through enhancing the availability and quality of MDG indicators, particularly in the sectors and countries of concern as identified in the last MDG progress report. The project also aims at reconciling differences between national and international MDG estimates, in a joined effort embarked upon by all United Nations Regional Commissions.
Despite recent efforts and progress,
disability statistics in most countries in Asia
and the Pacific remain severely underdeveloped.
The Biwako
Millennium Framework for Action (BMF) calls
for significant improvements in the availability,
quality, comparability and policy relevance
of disability statistics in the region. It is
imperative to develop a unifying international
approach for data collection through censuses
and surveys, and to increase national political
commitment and technical capacity to collect
and disseminate better disability statistics
formulating and evaluating national disability
policies and programmes.
Built upon the outcome of the previous ESCAP/WHO
disability project conducted in 2004-06, the
Statistics Division is implementing in 2007-2009
a United Nations Development Account project
- Improvement of Disability Measurement and
Statistics in Support of the Biwako Millennium
Framework and Regional Census Programme. It
will combine development of standard measurements
for disability data collection through pilot
studies and analyses, with in-country advocacy
workshops, targeted training, advisory services,
promotion of country-to-country cooperation
and knowledge management.
The Statistics Division is implementing the
project in close collaboration with UNSD, the
Washington Group on Disability Statistics, WHO,
ECE, the Budapest Initiative on Measurement
of Health Status, selected NSOs in the region
and with Social Development Division and SIAP. A Steering Committee
is set up to oversee the project design and
implementation and the project activities are
pursued through a project Task Team led by national
experts.
Statistics
on informal sector and informal employment
In many developing countries,
a significant proportion of people are employed
in the informal sector. While it is often assumed
that poverty, for instance, is more prevalent
among this group or that women are disproportionately
represented in the informal sector, little objective
and internationally-comparable information is
available about their living and working conditions,
income, social protection or contribution to
the economy. Standard labour force and enterprise
surveys usually capture, or separately identify,
only a small fraction of those whose livelihood
relies on working in the informal sector or
in unprotected jobs. Without taking into account
informal activities, estimates of female economic
participation rates could be implausibly low,
gross domestic product (GDP) significantly miscalculated,
and the share of population living below national
poverty line overestimated. The data and measurement
problems weaken the formulation, implementation
and evaluation of policies and programmes aimed
at promoting gender equality, eliminating child
labour, generating decent work for all and reducing
poverty.
The Statistics Division is implementing in
2007-2009 the United Nations Development Account
-funded project that aims to improve the measurement
of the informal sector and informal employment.
Its main objectives of the project are (i) to
increase availability of data on informal sector
and informal employment and (ii) to improve
analysis of this data to calculate the contribution
of informal sector to employment and to GDP.
The ultimate aim of the project is to increase
the number of countries which regularly collect
and disseminate informal employment and informal
sector data and integrate them into employment
and National Accounts estimates. The project
is implemented by ESCAP (as the lead agency),
ECLAC and ESCWA in partnership with the Delhi
Group on Informal Sector Statistics, ECA, ECE,
ECLAC, ESCWA, ILO, UNSD, WIEGO.
The Statistical Institute for
Asia and the Pacific (SIAP), which is located
in Chiba/Tokyo, Japan, is one of the four regional
institutes of ESCAP. Its work programme is part
of the Statistics subprogramme of ESCAP. There
is a clear division of labour between SIAP and
the Statistics Division: SIAP provides training
for statisticians on official statistics, whereas
the Division focuses on the development and
promotion of international statistical standards
through various modalities. SIAP has a Governing
Council which reviews its operations and considers
and adopts the annual and long-term programmes
of work of the Institute. More information about
SIAP can be obtained at the Institute's own
website.
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