Regional : Key Indicators for Asia and the Pacific 2018-2020 – Key Indicators for Asia and the Pacific 2018 (Subproject 1)

Education / Education sector development

Finance / Finance sector development

Health / Health sector development and reform

Industry and trade / Industry and trade sector development

Information and communication technology / ICT strategy and policy, and capacity development

Public sector management / Economic affairs management

Transport / Transport policies and institutional development

The TA is designed to address development issues from two perspectives: (i) informing policy discussions on inclusive growth through rigorous empirical analyses of survey and administrative data; and (ii) disseminating official statistics of the developing member countries (DMCs), other economic and social indicators, and survey data sets in an integrated format and through both print and digital media as well as through online databases.

While the region has experienced rapid economic growth, there is widespread acknowledgment that growth could be made more inclusive. This indicates a need to rigorously assess and build evidence on the types of policy and institutional frameworks needed for more inclusive development. Given ADB's strategic agenda of promoting inclusive growth and managing for development results, the TA will support high-quality microeconomic research along five pipelines: (i) poverty, inequality, and labor markets; (ii) human capital development, including education and health; (iii) firm competitiveness, including entrepreneurship and small and medium-sized enterprises; (iv) infrastructure and urbanization; and (v) GVCs and trade. These pipelines will feed directly into the Key Indicators theme chapter and additional reports. The topics for a given year will be decided in consultation with higher management and key sector groups, but are mandated to fall within these five areas of work.

Evidence-based decision-making relies on being able to easily access credible statistics and data sets for informing cross-country and within-country analyses on a wide variety of topics, including those pertaining to SDGs as well as trade links across countries.

Since both the research and statistics portions of the Key Indicators are critical for understanding inclusive growth and developing evidence-based policies in the region, the Key Indicators was identified as a corporate priority during the TA resource allocation meeting.

Research papers and statistics for Key Indicators prepared and published.

Development of ADB statistics portal, SDBS, and related data systems implemented and upgraded.

Workshops for knowledge sharing and dissemination conducted.

1) Research work for the background papers for the special report on urbanization is ongoing. For the statistics portion of KI 2018, national consultants have been engaged to assist in the preparation of the tables and the publication. Current activity includes the updating of statistical partners and preparation of questionnaires on country tables.

2) The enhanced version of AsiaData, which now runs on new versions of operating systems for Android and Apple devices, was made available on 13 February 2018.

3) Knowledge consultation workshops for the special report on urbanization will be conducted in 2019 once initial drafts of the background papers have been prepared. Dissemination seminars and events will be conducted after the report has been published.