Uganda receives statistical assistance from Norway

Employing about 70 per cent of the population, agriculture is responsible for half of the gross national product of a typical developing country. This is the first time an assistance project has been initiated for agricultural statistics. "Efforts to aid in improving statistics of this sort have lagged behind a bit relative to other development-oriented statistics," Wold says.

Tied to Millennium Development Goals

The statistical collaboration project in Uganda is tied to the UN's Millennium Development Goal of halving world poverty by 2015.

"Although so far agriculture-related issues have not been particularly emphasised in these objectives, these have now been acknowledged as important to include. For most people in rural areas the only relevant means of emerging from poverty is to increase agricultural production measured in kilograms or kroner," he says.

In Uganda statisticians will link agricultural questions to the coming census in September. "The form is actually quite cleverly devised," says Bjørn Wold, smiling. "Respondents to the census form are to tick off for whether they are farmers or not, and those who are farmers are to report the kinds of crops they grow and the kinds of animals they have. This will enable us to create a proper, representative sample for a census of agriculture. At the same time it provides an indication of the extent and diversification of various kinds of domestic animals and crops in Uganda."

Statistical assistance in many countries

As of today, the agricultural figures in the country are not particularly reliable. All the way back to the period of Idi Amin's regime in the 1970s, statistics have shown higher production figures than what was actually the case. "Although people have tried to adjust them, the important task is now to create methods and systems to guarantee correct figures in this crucial statistical area," says Wold.

Collaboration between Norway and Uganda in other statistical areas may also be in the offing, for instance in connection with a poverty mapping of the country. "This involves our tying the census to household surveys in order to ascertain the level of poverty in the individual districts and counties. We are also looking at whether we will continue to work on creating a system for publishing annual statistics on the UN's Millennium Development Goals," says Wold.

International consulting activities in statistics involves Norwegian statisticians assisting in building up the institutional statistical capacity in countries that are in need of this. These efforts also include helping to shape Norwegian aid policies and to plan, monitor and evaluate aid programmes and projects.

Collaboration projects under the auspices of Norway and Statistics Norway include the long-standing collaboration with the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, the creation of social and economic statistics in Mozambique, the development of the health information system in Botswana and environmental statistics in China, collaboration with the national statistical agency in Angola, setting up a population register in Albania and a project for a time-use survey and enhancing the gender role perspective in statistics in South Africa.

Statistical assistance activities have a long tradition, beginning already in the 1960s when Petter Jacob Bjerve, then the Director General of Statistics Norway, assisted in economic planning efforts in Pakistan. "Like other aid activities, the need for statistical assistance has grown in the 1990s," Bjørn Wold concludes.

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(C) Statistics Norway