A Guide to Advocate for Statistical Strategies

How to have policy-makers convinced of the advantages of effectively implementing a National Strategy for the Development of Statistics (NSDS) and scale-up support to statistical capacity building? As a statistician in Ethiopia, I am well aware that periodic improvement and consistent data collection contribute to the development of my country. However, it is difficult to say that this understanding exist in every counter parts involved including sector ministries, development partners and the public at large.

A new publication by the PARIS21 consortium precisely addresses this gap and. Titled Advocating for the National Strategy for the Development of Statistics: Country-level Toolkit, it provides useful and easy-to-build tools to gain support from development stakeholders on the necessity to have a well-prepared and successfully implemented NSDS.

The success of a NSDS is very linked to the attention allocated to advocating in support of the strategy itself, as a mean to improve among other elements the quality and timeliness of statistical data for better decision making. This publication argues that advocacy should be a major component of NSDS start from its design. But this raises many questions: advocating for what, to whom and by who? What message should be sent and through which mechanisms? As you can see just below the stakeholders at the country-level are many, and so are the messages to send out!

Now let’s move on to the practical steps about how advocacy strategies for statistics can be developed to focus efforts on those who are best placed to improve National Statistical Systems. A simple and effective way is to brainstorm with your colleagues and answer the following questions (see p. 11 of the above mentioned document for more details):

1. What changes are needed that advocacy can help to bring about?
2. What social, political, economic and institutional factors (including within the NSO and NSS) are affecting the dynamics and possibilities for change and improvement?
3. Which organizations and individuals (internal and external) can drive or help to drive that change?
4. What will motivate those key organizations and individuals and what messages will work best?
5. How can the messages be delivered, either directly or through intermediaries such as the media and other non-government channels?

I recommend this publication to statisticians and managers who want to demonstrate the advantages of and need for the NSDS. It provides tools, tips and messages to use, such as the use of newsletters, websites and the media. This tool kit is available to anyone here. I would like to read your thoughts on this publication and on the need for advocating on statistics in your country.

Yakob Mudesir
AfCoP Core Management Team member
Deputy Director, Central-Statistics Authority, Ethiopia