17.2 The United Nations System in the ISS#
The “family” of UN entities and their relationships to each other (United Nations System) is pictured in Annex 6 - The United Nations System[1]. United Nations entities with statistical mandates and/or engage in discussions on statistical development issues either report to or whose work is coordinated through the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC).
17.2.2 United Nations Statistical System#
The UN statistical system can be loosely described as the set of all statistical units of the United Nations system. Over the years, it has grown significantly, reflecting the increasing complexity of the development phenomena with which the United Nations is concerned and demonstrating that solid and high-quality statistical information is an indispensable prerequisite for global development. The institutional complexity of the United Nations statistical system mirrors the institutional complexity of the United Nations itself.
The United Nations Statistical Commission (UNSC), the “apex” entity of the international statistical system is a creation of the United Nations and a functional commission of the ECOSOC.
Four broad groups of UN System entities with statistical mandates can be distinguished.
First, there is a group comprising the (#2) secretariat units, including the Statistics Division (UNSD) under the Department of Economic and Social Affairs (#2.1- DESA) and the statistical units of the five regional commissions (#2.2).
Second, there are the statistical units of (#3) funds and programmes and other entities– for example, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN-Women). Each has its own funding and, therefore, its own administrative and programming procedures.
Third, there are the statistical units of the (#4) specialized agencies such as the International Labour Organization (ILO), the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the World Health Organization (WHO), each being mandated by a governing body. The members of the specialized agencies, which decide on their budgets and programmes, are composed mostly of governmental bodies of member States, but, in some cases, such as the ILO, employers’ and workers’ organizations are also members. The members decide the budgets and programmes.
Fourth, there are the statistical units of (#5) related organizations—the International Atomic Energy Association (IAEA), International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the World Trade Organization (WTO). These are organizations whose cooperation agreement with the United Nations has many points in common with that of Specialized Agencies but does not refer to Article 57 and 63 of the United Nations Charter, relevant to Specialized Agencies.
This decentralized approach has enabled the various statistical units to develop a high degree of technical specialization, thereby allowing them to serve their specific constituencies and users well. On the other hand, this decentralization has created a need for a functioning coordination mechanism, to ensure coherent data outputs and the effective utilization of scarce resources across the units.
Chapter 17.3 — United Nations Statistical Commission (UNSC) discusses the UNSC. The rest of section A describes the ISS entities organized around the categories shown in Figure 19. The subsections briefly describe the statistical mandates of the entities. More detailed information for each of the entities is available in “Cards”. The cards can be accessed by clicking the embedded link in the name of the organization in the subsections or in the list of organizations in Annex 7 - International Statistical System and Links to Cards.
17.2.3 United Nations Statistical Quality Assurance Framework#
In March 2018, the chief statisticians of the UN (🔗) System ratified the UN Statistical Quality Assurance Framework (🔗). This framework is intended to complement and support the Principles Governing International Statistical Activities (🔗), in particular principle 4, which strives to continuously improve the quality and transparency of statistics and identifies the adoption of a quality assurance framework by each international organization as best practice.
The UN Statistical Quality Assurance Framework (SQAF) is an overarching framework, intended to provide a common language and understanding of quality across all UN entities, funds and programmes. It was prepared to address the UN statistical governance infrastructure gap, identified in the* Principles Governing International Statistical Activities*, noted above. The UN SQAF also provides a generic template, so that each UN agency can develop their own bespoke SQAF, tailored to their specific circumstances, and yet retain overall coherence, and common look and feel across all agencies.
The UN SQAF provides a comparable framework to the UN National Quality Assurance Framework (UN NQAF) discussed in Chapter 8 - Quality Management, except rather than being designed for national statistical systems and national official statistics, the UN SQAF is written for the UN statistical system and international official statistics. In fact, this is one of the most novel aspects of the UN SQAF – the clear distinction made between official national and official international statistics. The UN SQAF defines Official International statistics as:
“statistics, indicators or aggregates produced by a UN agency or other international organization in accordance with the Principles Governing International Statistical Activities formulated by the Committee for the Coordination of Statistical Activities” (UN SQAF: Page 9).
Key priorities of UN statistics, and international statistics generally, are adherence to international standards and by extension, international comparability across countries. Consequently, modifications may occasionally be made to national statistics. Thus, the UN SQAF notes, it is not sufficient to describe or define official international statistics as simply the reproduction of official national statistics. Differences between national and international official statistics generally arise where national statistics have been adjusted to ensure adherence to international standards, classifications, definitions or methods, or when national statistics are erroneous. The UN SQAF also highlights the fact that UN agencies and international organizations may use unofficial data to compile international aggregates. In this regard, UN agencies and international organizations are guided by ECOSOC Resolution 2006/6 (🔗) para 5c, that calls on international agencies to avoid imputation unless specific country data are available for reliable imputations following consultations with concerned countries and through transparent methodologies.
It is envisaged that the UN SQAF will bring several benefits, including providing a systematic mechanism for identifying problems with the quality of statistical outputs, and possible actions for their resolution; creating awareness and culture of quality within agencies; and bring greater transparency to the processes by which statistics are produced, and their quality assured. But perhaps most importantly, the UN SQAF is a statement of intent; it makes explicit the objective or vision that all UN statistics will be assessed in accordance with the framework and that quality improvement possibilities are identified and implemented.
Like many national assurance frameworks or codes of practice, the UN SQAF comprises three quality components: institutional; process; and output. These in turn, together, comprise 8 quality dimensions, as shown in Figure 24. The UNCTAD SQAF is presented as an example in Box 13.
Box 13: UN SQAF - UNCTAD
In July 2019, UNCTAD launched its Statistical Quality Assurance Framework (🔗). This framework was prepared by their Statistics Coordination Committee, approved by UNCTAD’s Secretary-General, and then presented and approved by the Trade and Development Board, UNCTAD’s inter-governmental governing body.Two notable features of the UNCTAD SQAF are:
The SQAF is prefaced by a statistics quality declaration (🔗) where UNCTAD’s commitment to statistical excellence and making available high quality, independent statistics to inform research, debate and decision-making is reaffirmed, as is their commitment to the Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics and the Principles Governing International Statistical Activities.
The UNCTAD SQAF includes 26 Quality Performance Indicators. These QPIs set out explicit benchmarks against which UNCTAD’s statistical quality will be assessed. Critically, these indicators are also the basis upon which UNCTAD will conduct their first self-assessment during 2020. For transparency, UNCTAD has published its self-assessment questionnaire (🔗). |
Fig. 24 Quality components & dimensions#