Bank Considers New Push to Measure Results

The proposal, part of the Bank's push to increase its focus on the results of its development efforts, has been a year in development and will concentrate on improving the ability of countries to gather hard evidence on the state of their communities.

Misha Belkindas, cluster leader with the Development Data Group, in the Bank's Development Economics Vice Presidency (DEC), said the World Bank Board would consider launching a new program designed to build the capacity of developing countries to gather and analyze statistics.

The board will consider STATCAP - a joint DEC and Operations Policy and Country Services Department (OPCS) proposal for a new lending program to encourage countries to develop sophisticated statistical systems.

The proposal would go before the board by the end of March, Belkindas said.

STATCAP will involve providing investment loans as part of a program designed as a horizontal Adaptable Program Loans (APL) which will enable individual countries to finance national statistical capacity building projects.

The proposed new program is an extension of a statistical capacity building program financed through a Trust Fund for Statistical Capacity Building (TFSCB) which had triggered $22.2 million in commitments to 50 approved TFSCB projects in the three years to the end of December. Of this $11.5 million had come from the trust fund (the rest came from other sources) to build statistical capacity.

Belkindas said many countries were caught in a "vicious cycle" where inadequate funding to their statistical systems undermined the quality of their output. Poor quality in turn caused demand for the data to fall, which in turn led to still lower levels of funding.

He said "many, many" countries were being hampered in their development programs by having inadequate statistical systems.

"Without statistics, you are in the dark. You can't make informed policy decisions," he said.

Reliable data was needed to monitor outcomes for particular population groups and regions.

Statistics were also playing an increasingly important role as an instrument of good governance, providing feedback on the performance of governments and the international community and providing evidence for debate on policies and strategies.

The Poverty Reduction Strategy (PRS) process which is part of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund's approach to improving development results, was also very information intensive.

Belkindas said there were a few basic practices that countries should follow in building adequate statistical systems. A national population census should be conducted every 10 years, national accounts maintained in line with the accepted international standard, household surveys conducted at least every five years, information on population health and educational levels gathered in a timely fashion, etc.

But he said many countries were "far behind" this, having "no money and no capacity to do the job."

To take part in the STATCAP program, countries will be asked to produce statistical masterplans for the upgrading of their systems.

Two pilot programs are being developed - the first in Ukraine and the second in the African nation of Burkina Faso. Loans for those countries will be taken to the Board together with the umbrella program.

Among the priorities of STATCAP will be developing the ability within the statistical systems to monitor countries progress toward reaching the Millennium Development Goals.

Belkindas said if STATCAP was approved it would be a "major change for the Bank". "We are now really scaling up our efforts to improve statistics in developing countries," he said.

The Bank has already worked with Russia on a $30 million program to improve its statistical system. A similar program is being developed with the government of India.

But Belkindas said patience would be needed before judging STATCAP. Building a statistical system was a lengthy process and it could take a couple of years for the move to bear fruit.