The work of the Team for Statistical Development includes strengthening the institutional and technical capacity of the National Statistical Systems (NSS). To achieve this goal, the Program has implemented Trust Funds for Statistical Capacity Building (TFSCB) aimed at providing support to six countries in Central America and Panama: Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama (completed), and nine countries in South America: Uruguay (completed), Colombia (well underway), Bolivia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru and Venezuela (in process), Argentina and Paraguay (under preparation). In 11 of these countries, the process is supported jointly by the World Bank and PARIS21.
National Strategies for Development of Statistics 
The main goal of the National Strategies for Development of Statistics (NSDS) is to address the coordination, production and information issues that burden the national statistical systems, and to achieve the implementation of credible and relevant statistical systems in each country. The process for the formulation of NSDS has been notably participative, with producers, users, and other relevant stakeholders of the national statistical system playing a leading role. The National Strategies for the Development of Statistics contribute to improve the welfare of the population through better evidence-based public policies, by adequately measuring the social and economic conditions, and by supporting better monitoring and evaluation systems. The NSDS seek: - To sort out the demand for information based on the data required for the design, monitoring and evaluation of the main public initiatives;
- To prioritize those actions aimed at solving existing information gaps, improve the quality of the data that shall feed the prioritized information system, and to improve the timeliness and accessibility of the information; and
- To establish a network management system to ensure the proper coordination among key information demanders, among key information producers, and between the supply and demand of information.
The NSDS enable the identification of priority areas in which general and specific capacities for the development of statistical information need to be strengthened. From the NSDS derive the strategic plans for strengthening the system, and from these, sound action plans to enhance the quality, coverage, equity, efficiency, accessibility and sustainability of statistical data.
Components of a Strengthened NSS In the following graph, the lower part shows the components of a strengthened National Statistical System (NSS), and the upper part shows the effects ensuing from such strengthening process that contribute to the achievement of less poverty and inequality. 
The information system synthesizes the demand for information required by the national development plans, and includes results indicators on which budgetary decisions should be based. The national development plans and poverty reduction strategies constitute core documents to begin identifying information requirements. The production system comprises methodologies, processes and conceptual frameworks that lead and guide the output of statistical data, determine its level of quality and opportunity, and define its production cost. The coordination system becomes, in turn, the set of articulation incentives that lead the different NSS stakeholders to produce. Its main objective is to build closer links between national statistical offices and information producers through different juridical-administrative mechanisms, such as, among others: inter institutional or sectorial agreements between statistical offices and information producers; work commissions; creation of statistical sectorial offices. The National Statistical Offices leadership over the process to consolidate the coordination and production mechanisms is critical, as well as over the process to facilitate –jointly with the most relevant ministries- the classification of the information system requirements. The articulation of the National Statistical System (NSS) through the NSDS and the benefits derived therefrom requires from the onset the institutional strengthening of the national statistical offices as core elements of the producers’ network, and its effective interaction with users.
Additional Information and Materials The process to systematize the lessons learned while developing NSDS in Central America is currently under implementation. A regional participative process was thus achieved, together with full national ownership that, in some cases, translated into new institutional and legal initiatives and the creation of new coordination mechanisms. The report is pending publication in 2007. The content of the section is based on a dissertation by Jose Molinas Vega and Alejandro Medina Giopp submitted to the Second Regional Conference on Monitoring and Evaluation, IDB-World Bank. May 10-11, 2006, Washington DC: “Las Estrategias Nacionales de Desarrollo Estadístico (ENDES) y los Sistemas de Monitoreo y Evaluación (M&E): Hacia una estrategia integrada de modernización de la gestión pública”. In the document "NSDS Essentials" the consortium Paris21 sets forth its vision regarding the core issues to take into account when formulating National Strategies for the Development of Statistics.
NSDS Go to the links below to download the NSDS developed by the countries (available in Spanish only): - Colombia - Costa Rica - El Salvador - Guatemala - Honduras - Nicaragua - Panamá - Perú - Uruguay |
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