Building statistical capacity

Why statistics are important

A country needs statistics to describe its social, economic and environmental conditions in order to improve the lives and opportunities of its citizens. Statistics thus play an important role in planning, governing and developing societies. Statistics provide the information needed for policy-makers to make evidence-based decisions, for citizens to form opinions and hold government accountable, for businesses to make sound decisions, and for researchers to analyse society.

Meeting both national and international needs for statistics

The national statistical institution plays a central role in producing official statistics. The institution must be professional and independent from the political system and have the capacity to produce impartial, relevant, reliable, timely and comparable statistics of high quality. Producing statistics for national needs as well as international monitoring of among others the Sustainable Development Goals are important tasks. This requires a competent and professional national statistical institution which is competently staffed and sufficiently funded.

International cooperation

Statistics Denmark has participated in statistical capacity building in various countries for the past 20 years. We work closely with partner institutions and tailor advice to local needs and conditions while aspiring to international standards. The close cooperation with our partner ensures a high degree of ownership for the projects and creates lasting results. Our goal in capacity building is to achieve sustainable change through knowledge transfer and practical advice. Our staff transfers knowledge on the topics they work with on a daily basis. This ensures discussions on an equal level and a mutual understanding between our staff and the staff in the partner institution.

Our expertise

We participate in capacity building projects in all aspects of the statistical production from data collection to processing of data to dissemination of statistics to users. We work with social, economic and business statistics. We can also build capacity on issues like quality management, administrative data sources, legislation, IT infrastructure and databases, and coordination of the national statistical system. We have experience from countries in East Europe, Caucasus, the Middle East, Central Asia, South East Asia and Africa.

Financing

Our involvement in building statistical capacity is either financed by international institutions like the European Union and the World Bank or by bilateral donors. Our projects are designed in close cooperation with the partner institution and the funding agency to ensure local needs are met.