Team for Statistical Development

The Team for Statistical Development is part of the Poverty and Gender Group of the Poverty Reduction and Economic Management Unit (PREM) of the World Bank’s Latin American and Caribbean Region.

 Creation of the Team

 Our Mission

 Challenges in the Development of Statistics

 Contact us

 

 

Creation of the Team

 

The Team for Statistical Development was created based on the lessons learned and the identification of future challenges that have ensued from more than 10 years of work undertaken by the Program for the Improvement of Surveys and Measurement of Living Conditions in Latin America and the Caribbean (MECOVI).  Taking into consideration the increase in the use of statistics for designing, monitoring and evaluating public policies, as well as programs and projects for reducing poverty and promoting social equity, the Team for Statistical Development has made it its goal to expand the traditional approach of the MECOVI program for the improvement of household surveys, in order to also include the work currently performed around the National Strategies for the Development of Statistics (NODS). This process leads to recognize the need for an integral and ongoing effort in order to produce, use and coordinate statistical information for designing, monitoring and evaluating public policies, programs and projects aimed at reducing poverty and at promoting social equity.

 

Our Mission

 

The Team’s mission is to build the capacity of producers and users of statistical information in order to foster a higher quality and usage of said information, and thus, to contribute to the generation of better public policies aimed at reducing poverty in Latin America and the Caribbean. This task is performed through two main areas of work:

 

1)       Ongoing support to the MECOVI program for the generation of social statistics through a household survey system that provides easy-to-access information on a timely and comparable manner in order to improve the living conditions of the population.

 

2)       Assist countries in the formulation and implementation of national strategies for the development of statistics aimed at strengthening the information system, the output of statistical data, and the coordination of the national statistical system in order to improve the design and effectiveness of public policies.

 

While implementing MECOVI, the work was performed solely with the National Statistical Offices (NSOs), but this new stage of the Team for Statistical Development seeks to expand the support given to institutional upgrades throughout the organization, and to the coordination and functionality of the national statistical systems, including line ministries, Central Bank, universities, civil society organizations, among others. The NSOs, however, are still the main speakers in this process.

 

Facing the Challenges of Development of Statistics

 

Based on the MECOVI experience, the work of the Team for Statistical Development is focused on addressing the challenges foreseen for the future, including those described herein below:

• To strengthen the link between statistical information, administrative records, and monitoring and evaluation processes related to the Millennium Development Goals and poverty indicators.
• To seek flexible strategies to conduct household surveys based on the country’s characteristics and needs.
• To improve the quality of the administrative records and the censuses in order to strengthen the different information systems.
• To enhance the capacity to measure the evolution of variables through the implementation of panel surveys and data observations.
• To promote the methodological research of household surveys, censuses, and administrative records.
• To improve the organization and documentation of household surveys’ databases.
• To improve the access to, and the dissemination of household survey data.
• To strengthen the demand for information generated by the civil society, the private sector and public institutions.
• To foster an ongoing interaction between producers and users of statistical data.
• To promote the standardization of the data gathering processes.

For additional information or questions, please write to the following e-mail address:

lac-estadisticas@worldbank.org