Regional : Statistical Capacity Development for Inclusive Growth through Regional Cooperation (revised title: Statistical Capacity Development for Social Inclusion and Gender Equality)

Public sector management / Economic affairs management

Despite the recommendations of the UN Beijing Platform for Action (1995) on regular collection of sex-disaggregated statistics, there are still major gaps in the availability and quality of gender statistics in many areas. Specifically, while there are standard definitions and methods of data collection in the areas of education, health and employment, there are no clear standards and commonly accepted definitions to guide data collection on entrepreneurship and ownership of assets and their gender dimensions. Even where data are collected through surveys by the countries, data may not be comparable due to lack of commonly accepted definitions - thus the need for common standards for collecting comparable data.

Social inclusion and gender inclusive health policies and MDG monitoring have highlighted the importance of CRVS systems - the most comprehensive source of sex-disaggregated data on vital events, in particular, births and deaths at both the national and smaller administrative levels to provide timely indicators on fertility, mortality (including maternal and child mortality for MDGs 4 and 5 indicators) and causes of death. Recent assessments show that these systems are suffering from incomplete registrations and poor quality of vital statistics produced, leading to conduct of costly donor-funded (unsustainable) household surveys to meet data gaps. ADB's RETA 6429: Supporting the Achievement of the Millennium Development Goals in the Asia and Pacific Region (Phase III) indicated the need to come up with reliable alternative sources of data for monitoring progress in attaining the MDGs, particularly MDGs 4 and 5 at the national and subnational levels. ADB's RETA 6356: Improving Administrative Data Sources for the Monitoring of Millennium Development Goals Indicators also assessed severe weaknesses in the CRVS systems. Common reasons for poor functioning of CRVS systems are lack of awareness, lack of political commitment, human and financial capacity constraints, lack of incentive or motivation to register, barriers to registration (costs, distance from registration centers, cultural norms), absence of adequate legal provisions, and lack of appreciation for timely and reliable statistics. Most countries (including those with high rates of birth and death registrations) lack good-quality cause-of-death statistics, which is a serious lacuna to a gender-based approach to health policy. Absence of well-functioning CRVS systems also deprives citizens from very basic legal documents such as birth, death, and marriage certificates, thereby excluding a big section of population, especially the poor and marginalized populations, from basic rights and governance benefits.

Improved capacity of participating developing member countries (DMCs) to produce reliable statistics in the project's focus areas on a regular and sustained basis

Standard methods to collect sex-disaggregated data on entrepreneurship and asset ownership contribute to global standards and available for use by countries; and regional strategic program for improvement of CRVS systems endorsed and participating countries improve their CRVS in prioritized areas

Component 1: Sex-disaggregated data on assets and entrepreneurship

* Substantial inputs provided by the project to the United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD) who have drafted methodological guidelines and recommendations on the design and implementation of surveys for collecting sex-disaggregated statistics on asset ownership; the draft methodological guidelines were presented to the UN Statistical Commission in its 48th session in March 2017 and are being currently finalized by the UNSD.

Component 2: Improvements in civil registration and vital statistics

* Successful advocacy for improving CRVS undertaken through regional cooperation; A regional strategic plan for improving CRVS systems in Asia and the Pacific prepared and endorsed in a ministerial conference on CRVS held in November 2014 under a regional initiative on CRVS led by ESCAP in collaboration with ADB (through this project) and other development partners; many countries of the are now in the process of implementing actions identified in the regional strategic plan to improve their CRVS systems.

(Sex-disaggregated data on assets and entrepreneurship )

1) Standard methods developed for collection of comparable data on entrepreneurship and assets ownership by sex; technical reports prepared and inputs provided for global standards

2) Regional and in-country training/workshops to train staff of participating countries in new methods of data collection on sex disaggregated data on asset ownership and entrepreneurship

3) Pilot data collection (surveys) by the 3 selected countries conducted

(CRVS Component)

4) Regional strategic plan for improvement of CRVS systems developeda collaborative regional initiative of development partners is developed.

5) Approved country proposals for improving CRVS systems implemented for each participating DMC.

6) Associated training programs for improvement of CRVS systems of participating countries designed and/or implemented.

Component 1: Sex-disaggregated data on assets and entrepreneurship

1) Standard methods and instruments for conducting pilot household surveys in the three participating DMCs (Georgia, Mongolia, Philippines) developed in collaboration with UNSD under the global Evidence and Data for Gender Equality (EDGE) project; Substantial tabulations, data and other technical and operation inputs provided to the UNSD for developing methodological guidelines on the subject; country reports of pilot surveys being finalized by the country teams; an integrated report summarizing the experiences from the three pilot surveys currently being finalized.

2) Regional and in-country training workshops conducted to train country teams on data collection, data processing, tabulation, and report writing for the implementation of pilot surveys using EDGE methodology; country dissemination workshops to be conducted in April 2018

3) Pilot household surveys (national level in Georgia and Mongolia and one province in the Philippines) using the methods and instruments developed under the EDGE initiative successfully conducted in the three DMCs.

Component 2: Improvements in civil registration and vital statistics

1) Regional strategic plan for improvement of CRVS systems in Asia and the Pacific developed through the leadership of ESCAP and in collaboration with ADB and other development partners.

2) Proposal for a web-based CRVS system in Cambodia approved; activities in the two other identified DMCs (Sri Lanka and Timor-Leste) did not push through due to changes in the countries'' priorities.

3) The three countries participated in regional training and advocacy workshops under support from the TA. For Cambodia pilot - web-based tools and user manuals were developed and training was provided to concerned CRVS staff in the 10 pilot sangkats of Battambang municipality and staff in the Ministry of Interior, Ministry of Health, and Ministry of Planning.