Implementation Guidelines
Supplementary chapter to the Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics Implementation Guidelines (March 2020)
Supplementing the United Nations Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics: Mapping and Guidance for the United Nations Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics against non-conventional and nontraditional data sources (March 2020)
Background
At its forty-second session in 2011, the Commission established group of Friends of the Chair on the Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics to, amongst other things, develop a practical guide for the implementation of the Principles (decision 42/111). In 2014, the Commission welcomed the first draft of the implementation guidelines as an excellent starting point, and asked the Friends of the Chair group to continue its work on this important document; in this context, it invited countries to enrich the implementation guidelines with further comments and submission of good country practices (decision 45/101). In the following consultation process, almost 40 countries contributed and the final implementation guidelines were presented to the Statistical Commission at its 46th session in March 2015.
In 2017, the Commission, in its decision 48/107, re-established the Friends of the Chair group to work on selected dimensions of the implementation of the Fundamental Principles in the context of the preparation for the twenty-fifth anniversary of their adoption, to be celebrated in 2019.
In 2019, the Commission, in its decision 50/104, requested the group to complete its work and prepare two supplementary chapters to the Implementation Guidelines providing guidance on evaluation criteria for compliance with and implementation of the Fundamental Principles when using new data sources, to be presented at the fifty-first session in 2020. The Commission also agreed that the group should continue its work for another year and that, after the fifty-first session, the work on the Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics would be concluded and would subsequently be resumed in time for the next appraisal, in 2024.
In its decision 51/119 at its 51st Session in 2020, The Statistical Commission welcomed the report of the Friends of the Chair group on the Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics, and well as the work by the group on the development of two additional chapters for the implementation guide for the Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics, focused on a compliance and maturity framework for implementation of the Principles, and guidance for the application of the Principles when using new data sources for the production of official statistics.
It is anticipated that the global survey will be launched for every five-year anniversary of the Fundamental Principles. Therefore, the next survey will be conducted in advance of the thirtieth anniversary of the Principles, to be ce lebrated in 2024.
Implementation Surveys
Self-assessment survey 2019
In 2018, the Friends of the Chair Group on Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics conducted a global survey based on a self-assessment of the implementation of the Principles, which also included specific topics relating to open data practices. The new, updated version was prepared with the contribution of the Partnership in Statistics for Development in the 21st Century (PARIS21), and with the aim of modernizing and improving previous versions, while still maintaining the core questions similar to those in the 2012 edition of the questionnaire to allow for a review of progress.
The questionnaire included new questions relating to open data and non-official and non-traditional data to better appreciate the current situation of national statistical offices and their use of information from an expanded data ecosystem. Over 80 countries had completed the questionnaire.
A full analysis of the results was provided in a background document for review by the Commission in 2019: [ English ]Global Review 2012
The United Nations Statistical Commission, at its session in 2011, asked the United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD) to conduct a global review of the implementation of the Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics and to prepare a report to be discussed at the Commission's session in 2013. This global review builds on an earlier review conducted in 2003. It was part of a work programme under the leadership of a Friends of the Chair group leading up to the 20th anniversary of the adoption of the Fundamental Principles by the UN Statistical Commission in 2014.
The results of the global survey, in which 126 national statistical offices participated, were reported to the Statistical Commission at its 44th session in the following document: [ English ]Questionnaires used: [ Arabic | English | French | Russian | Spanish ]
Global Review 2003
On the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the adoption of the Fundamental Principles the Commission had initiated a similar review. During the first such global survey, the Division had received responses from 112 countries, which were reported to the Commission at its 35th session in document E/CN.3/2004/21: [ Arabic | Chinese | English | French | Russian | Spanish ]