The global dimension of statistics

When the statistics world met for its jubilee conference, both a historical retrospective and challenges for the future were on the agenda. The UN Conference of European Statisticians (CES) has played a key role in efforts to develop internationally comparable statistics. Increasing in importance, such statistics help to form the basis for research on and analyses of developments in Europe in such areas as trade, economics, population trends and the environment.

"CES is a driving force behind the co-ordination of comparable relevant statistics across national borders", Longva says. “This is important, both for being able to develop quantifiable targets for national and international policies with regard to, for instance, fighting poverty and environmental challenges and for monitoring and evaluating developments and results.”

He emphasise that the body intends to work closely with the rest of the UN system to solve the problems of the future with regard to regional and global issues. “Globalisation affects the statistical system. The growth of multinational corporations, the repeal of currency controls, customs unions etc, require new ways of collecting and presenting statistics.”

"Better statistics must be compiled for describing and analysing globalisation, as the basis of shaping policy, for business and industry and not least for democracy", Longva underscores. “If ordinary people are to be able to form an opinion on what is going on, the informational groundwork must be in place,” he says.

Like its counterparts in other countries, Statistics Norway regularly reports statistics to several international organisations such as the EU, OECD, UN, IMF, ILO and UNESCO. On the basis of these reports the organisations can prepare and publish comparable country-by-country statistics and analyses. A number of Norwegian statisticians are committed to the international efforts, also through participation in various working groups in the EU that develop and co-ordinate work in national statistical agencies.

“Without a common platform it is hard to see how the democratic system can involve the vast majority and function as intended. The statistical description of society and analyses of the way it functions are important elements of such a platform. This applies locally, nationally and internationally.”

A meeting place

The statistics body, which is under the UN Economic Commission for Europe (ECE), comprises the heads of national statistical agencies in Europe as well as the USA and Canada.All the same, the conference is a “supranational statistical node” for many more than the 55 member countries that make up the ECE region. In addition to representatives from EUROSTAT, the OECD, IMF and a number of organisations in the UN system, several other countries also participate as observers, including Australia and Japan.

“Our role as a meeting place for decision makers within the statistics community is still central and will be just as important in the years ahead,” says the Director General.

Co-operation and co-ordination are some of the principal functions of the conference, especially for the steering group, which bears the name “The Bureau”. This steering group comprises six permanent members, as well as the directors of statistics of the EU, IMF and OECD and the heads of the UN Statistical Commission and the Interstate Statistical Committee of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).

“It is a fact that most of the development resources are found within the ECE area, which means that the main engine for the development of official statistics will still be here,” says Longva. “But we are now in a phase in which we see the role that the conference is to play in the evolution of statistics in the rest of the world. This requires that the statistics body evolve into a proper common meeting place and a catalyst for the challenges of the future.”

Retrospective: From Cold War to universal statistical principles

The Conference of European Statisticians came to be in the wake of the founding of the UN and other international bodies after the Second World War. In the decades to follow, conference work emphasised technical matters such as the preparation of national accounts and economic statistics.

“The CES was set up as a result of the need for a forum at which leading statisticians could test and discuss new ideas and projects. Even though in the initial years the focus was on national accounts and economic statistics, demographic statistics were added early on and gradually social statistics, too,” says the Director General.

The conference evolved quickly into a unique meeting place for statisticians from Europe and North America. The CES also filled an important “statistical bridge-building role” between market and non-market economies during the four decades of the Cold War. The collapse of the Soviet Union, EU expansion and increasing internationalisation and globalisation have focused efforts more towards overarching issues the past decade.

“When the Eastern Bloc countries began to create new statistical agencies after the fall of the Wall, they needed clear guidelines for ensuring that statistics could be produced independently with regard to their new rulers. Through this it became clear that overarching guidelines of this sort either were not good enough or did not exist for Western producers of statistics. This was seen to be a relevant problem,” Longva explains.

As a result of the new situation, in the 1990s the CES gave birth to an international statistical innovation of great importance for the statistician community and the way in which statistical agencies think and act: the UNs Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics. These ten principles set forth the role and tasks in society of official statistics and statistical agencies.

“Together with common standards and methods, the UNs principles are to help to guarantee the independence of statistics and foster efforts to improve international comparable statistics. Statistics Norways Advance Release Calendar , where we notify the public about the release of various new statistics, is an example of how overarching common standards function in practice. It has become an important principle of statistics that the public, everyone in society, is to have access to new statistics at the same time and on equal terms,” Longva points out.

It has not always been thus. For example, as late as in 1997, the Ministry of Finance got access to the consumer price index one hour before everyone else. Up until 1982 it was common for both the Ministry of Finance and Norges Bank to read the draft of the Economic Survey before it was printed.

“Anything like that would be unthinkable today. It is now an established and invariable principle in Norway that no one, not even the authorities or other powerful persons, gets access to these kinds of statistics in advance of the official date and time of release,” says the Director General.

Longva adds that Norway has come a long way in promulgating laws and regulations and not least secure practices to ensure the independence of statistics. “Even though we have the UNs fundamental principles, there is still a way to go for comparable independence for the statistical operations of international and supranational bodies,” he says.

“Working for independence must, however, not be mistaken for not wanting to be strongly user-oriented or collaborate closely with the authorities; indeed, independence is important for the way in which we are user-friendly. Statistical data are to be readily accessible and tailored to the needs of our users in political circles and in business as well as those of the general public.”

Besides the UNs Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics, the CES has helped to enable individual member countries and international organisations to get an overview of what is going on in the areas of the development of methodology and of statistical standards and accounting systems and of conference activities etc. This has been formalised in the Integrated Presentation of Statistical Work Programmes . “This is also a particularly important document in efforts to co-ordinate activities in the area of statistics in the various international organisations and in efforts internationally to co-ordinate and streamline the gathering of statistics from the individual national agencies for the OECD, EUROSTAT, the IMF etc,” Longva concludes.

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(C) Statistics Norway