Main Findings and Challenges in Compiling the CRESS data in

Ethiopia

Presented at P21 Board Meeting29 March 2012, Paris

From PRESS to CRESS

The CRESS is a country-led exercise to gather all data relating to the funding of

the entire NSS whether deriving from national resources or donor support.

Objective of CRESS

• The ultimate objective is to improve efficiency of the NSS through a better co-ordination and better information sharing.

Scope of CRESSThe CRESS exercise covers activities funded by the country’s own resources as well as activities funded by financial and technical partners (FTPs) . i.e.,

•Financing from national resources, budgetary or resources of NSS units

•Use of loan/credits

•Grants from FTPs (targeted budget support to a sector, aid projects, or statistical component of a program, for instance monitoring and evaluation)

Data collection for CRESS Covers all activities of the NSS, including:

Recurring statistical production activities (e.g., administrative data collection);

One of data collection activities (e.g., surveys and censuses);

Dissemination and use of statistics

Experience of Ethiopia in piloting CRESS

CRESS is conducted and implemented by the Central Statistical Agency of Ethiopia

Period under consideration: 2009-2011

Experience of Ethiopia in piloting CRESS

38 institutions have been indentified in the NSS to be involved in the CRESS Exercise

After distributing the CRESS questionnaire to all NSS members, the CSA contacted the focal experts and observed the challenges in filling the questionnaires .

An attempt was made to discuss in detail on each of the questions on the form by organizing a half day seminar with the financial support of P21 .

Lessons Learned from the Pilot in Ethiopia

The Challenge of getting the actual amount spent for statistical activities out of the total budget allotted to institutions i.e. the difficulty in identifying the statistical component in a given project be it national resource or FTPs project.

In a Federal System like Ethiopia, local governments also allot budget for some statistical activities where the experts raised scope of the CRESS whether they should include districts of the sectors or not. We decided to restrict ourselves to the resources at Federal Level.

The Challenge of Compiling CRESS Data at National Level

After retrieving the filled-in questionnaires from Development Partners and from all NSS including that of the CSA, the data was submitted to P21 consultant to help in compiling the data and to come up with the report.

However, we realized this task should be done in the country by national consultant.

Today’s presentation is limited to the Statistical Support to Central Statistical Agency as opposed to all NSS, or to the Country

.

The loin share of the Country’s Statistical Support goes to the CSA

That is because:

The Central Statistical Agency (CSA) has two main mandates:

Conduct censuses and surveys to collect, process, analyse and disseminate statistical data

Provide technical guidance and assistance to government agencies and institutions in building administrative statistical systems and registers.

The CSA is the key coordinating agency in the National Statistical System (NSS)

Human Resources of CSAProportion of statistical staff versus administrative

staffYear Statistical

personnelOther personnel

Total

Statisticians(1)

Researchers

(2)

Technicians(3)

TOTAL(1+2+3)

Admin. Staff(5)

Others(6)

TOTAL(5+6)

(1+2+3+5+6)

2010 272 - 672 994 342 373 715 1659

2011 267 - 651 918 386 397 803 1721

2012 348 - 645 993 419 397 816 1809

Human Resource Of CSA

Operating Cost of CSAdescription 2009 2010 2011

Recurrent budget

USD USD USD

Wages and salaries

2,212,786 1,915,840 2,032,711

Goods and equipment

249,375 276,013 276,928

Infrastructure(buildings)

- - 834,670

Total running expenses

2,462,161 2,191,853 3,144,309

Capital Expenditure of CSADue to periodic surveys such HCES, WMS and

DHS in 2011, the disbursement of Development Partners have increased from 2.8% in 2009 to 50% in 2010 an 65% in 2011

SECTION 2009 2010 2011 remarkCapital Budget USD USD USD

Statistical surveys 4,694,224

4,405,754

4,435,855 Government Budget

Disbursements of Development partners

136,898 4,359,411

8,162,019

Total spending 4,831,122

8,765,165

12,597,874

Graph of distribution per section

Annual Surveys (Projects) by Domestic Resource

Statistical surveys or projects that are conducted using domestic resources or national budget:Agriculture sample surveys, labor force, price ,

business statistics ( manufacturing industry and distributive trade surveys )… etc

The resources are shown as follows:

Year Disbursement   Currency

2009 4,694,224 USD

2010 4,405,754 USD

2011 4,435,855 USD

Major Donors Supported Statistical Projects (2009- 2011)

Name of project

Beneficiary institution

Amount of financing

Implementation time span

Donors

Protection of Basic Services (PBS)

CSA 2,000,000 2008-12 WB

Support to food security information

CSA,MOA,EMA

2,000,000 2008-2009 EC/EU

Name of project

Beneficiary institution

Amount of financing

Implementation time span

donor objective

Support to M&E PRSP &MDGS

CSA 12,017,986

2004-12 Development Assistant Group (pooled fund)

Increased availability of population data

CSA 13,040,500

2006-11 UNFPA,DFID an others (Pooled fund)

Living standard survey (LSMS)

CSA 1,986,389 2011-2013

WB/BILL GATES

Improving Agricultural statistics methodology

CSA, EMA, MOA

990,000 2011-2012

Bill Gates Foundation

Next StepsWith the assistance of P21 financial support CSA

will hire a National Consultant to come up with the CRESS report from this pilot exercise.

Through this pilot exercise we feel the questionnaires could be improved for both the data collection and compilation.

In doing so we expect to come up with a number of recommendations for future exercises.