United Nations E/1999/11

Economic and Social Council Distr.: General

7 April 1999

Original: English

Substantive session of 1999

Geneva, 5–30 July 1999
Item 6 of the provisional agenda*
Meeting on the work being carried out by the United Nations system and
other relevant international and national institutions on basic indicators
to measure progress towards the implementation of the integrated and
coordinated follow-up of all aspects of major United Nations conferences
and summits
New York, 10 and 11 May 1999

Integrated and coordinated implementation and follow-up of

major United Nations conferences and summits
A critical review of the development of indicators in the context of
conference follow-up**

Report of the Secretary-General

* E/1999/100.
** The first draft of the present report was reviewed by an Expert Group on Development Indicators,
convened by the United Nations Statistics Division, New York, 8–10 March 1999. The list of experts is
contained in annex II of this report. The same draft was also discussed during the thirtieth session of the
Statistical Commission, 1–5 March 1999, New York.

99-10017 (E) 040599

E/1999/11

Executive summary
Accurate, timely and unbiased information is crucial to sound public policy decisions.
In particular, in the context of conference follow-up, statistical indicators are indispensable.
It is possible to conduct an objective assessment of the extent to which goals have been
achieved only if benchmark data and reliable indicators are available.

Among international organizations, there remains room for improvement in the

coordination of data collection. Such coordination can promote efficient use of resources,
and can contribute to easing the burden on statistical programmes of countries. The
presentreport argues that there are many instances of inconsistencies between data
disseminated at the international level. Inconsistent definitions and methodologies lead to
a loss of credibility when two or more agencies produce different indicators of the “same”
concept.

The major problems, however, are the serious gaps in the international databases. These
are, in most instances, a direct consequence of the lack of basic statistical data at the country
level. There is an enormous mismatch between the demand for information — a demand which
has increased as a result of the global conferences — and the ability of most countries to
supply the required information. This report gives examples of how overwhelming for a
country — even for developed countries — the sheer volume of data requests can be.
This report also reviews means of implementation. It finds that official development
assistance (ODA) for the implementation of conference goals has been diminishing. In
general, ODA fell to 0.22 per cent of the combined gross domestic product of member
countries of the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) of the Organisation for Economic
Cooperation and Development (OECD) in 1997, far below the target level of 0.7 per cent.
Additional work is needed to improve monitoring tools in this area.
The report concludes that possible next steps fall into two broad categories: (a) to
improve partnerships at the international level and (b) to strengthen statistical capacity at
the national level. Continued coordination at the international level regarding data collection,
and development of concepts and methods will go a long way towards addressing the various
problems related to inconsistencies. A common development indicator platform on the Internet
is suggested in this context. Coordination is also necessary to focus the information demands
placed on countries. This report does not propose new coordination structures, but rather
recommends that efforts build upon the present mechanisms. It emphasizes, however, that
improved coordination will require both a genuine commitment and the necessary resources
to carry it out.

The only way to ensure the provision of statistical information on a routine basis is to
build national statistical capacity. In order to strengthen this capacity the report recommends
the formation of a high-level working group consisting of major donor agencies and the
Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations Secretariat to more
effectively coordinate data-collection and statistical capacity-building programmes in
countries. In addition, a targeted international programme to build national capacity in the
areas of censuses and sample surveys is proposed.

Given the cross-cutting nature of development indicators, with both normative and
operational dimensions, the Economic and Social Council is the appropriate forum in which
to review the implementation and follow-up on this issue.

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Contents
Paragraphs Page

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1–5 5
I. Indicator programmes at the international level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6–17 6
A. Description of indicator programmes related to conferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8–11 6
1. Indicator initiatives responding to specific conferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 6
2. Cross-conference initiatives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10–11 8
B. Gaps and inconsistencies in indicators at the international level . . . . . . . . . . . 12–17 8
1. Gaps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13–15 8
2. Inconsistencies among indicators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16–17 9
II. Situation at country level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18–28 10
A. Capacity of countries to produce indicators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19–20 10
B. Impact of international actions at country level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21–28 12
III. Means of implementation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29–38 14
IV. Possible next steps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39–40 17
Boxes
1. Example of an indicator initiative for a conference follow-up: Education for All Year 2000
Assessment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2. Statement of the main problems discussed in sections I and II . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
3. The 20/20 initiative . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
4. Monitoring of financial resources for assisting the implementation of the Programme of Action of
the International Conference on Population and Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Annexes
I. List of selected global conferences, conventions and declarations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
II. Expert Group Meeting on Development Indicators, New York, 8–10 March 1999: list of
participants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
III. Selection and dissemination of indicators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
IV. Number of international data-collection activities by organization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
V. Selected indicator activities linked to the follow-up of specific conferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
VI. Cross-conference indicator initiatives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
VII. Union of core indicator sets (Minimum National Social Data Set (MNSDS), Organisation for
Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)-United Nations-World Bank, United Nations
Development Assistance Framework-common country assessment (UNDAF-CCA), basic social
services for all (BSSA)) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

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VIII. Availability and recency of data at the international level for selected indicators in the Minimum
National Social Data Set (MNSDS) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
IX. Illustrative examples of inconsistencies among indicators in international publications . . . . . . . . . 42
X. Description of international data initiatives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

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Introduction
1. Indicators and statistics1 are important tools for countries in their policy-making
processes. First, they permit an assessment of the prevailing situation. Second, they permit
the quantification of specific policy objectives. Third, and perhaps most importantly, they
become yardsticks of the progress towards the formulated target. Countries determine their
own needs for indicators and statistics, depending on their degree of socio-economic and
statistical development and on their policy priorities.
2. Indicators are also essential prerequisites of worldwide review of progress towards the
implementation of United Nations conference resolutions as well as of decision-making,
including decisions on funding. The conferences and summits2 of the past decade have resulted
in the formulation of concrete policy goals. In many cases, these were general in nature, but
in some specific cases they took the form of quantified targets.3 Consequently, the conferences
called on countries and international organizations to develop and improve the requisite
statistics and indicators.4
3. In its deliberations on the integrated and coordinated implementation and follow-up
of major United Nations conferences and summits, the Economic and Social Council
recognized the importance of the issue of statistics and indicators 5 and decided to dedicate
an informal meeting of the Council with panels of experts to this topic. The present report
was therefore commissioned, and would consider in a comprehensive manner the work being
carried out by the United Nations system, and other relevant international and national
institutions, on basic indicators to measure progress towards the implementation of the
integrated and coordinated follow-up of all aspects of major United Nations conferences and
summits, including means of implementation, in the economic, social and related fields at
all levels, with a view, as a first step, to taking stock and identifying overlapping duplication
and gaps.6
4. Attempts at defining what an indicator is have not as yet yielded a single definition text
that has been widely applied. From several of the definitions reviewed, an indicator can
generally be characterized by two basic elements:
(a) It is, for example, a statistic, fact, measurement, statistical series (in other words,
quantitative) or some form of evidence or perception (in other words, qualitative);
(b) It has a purpose of clarifying and defining objectives, assessing present and future
direction with respect to goals and values, evaluating specific programmes, demonstrating
progress, measuring changes in a specific condition or situation over time, determining impact
of programmes, conveying messages.
While it is recognized that both quantitative information and qualitative information are
required for some types of development analyses, this report focuses on quantitative indicators
which cover a wide spectrum of development information ranging from simple statistics to
indices.7
5. Section I of this report describes ongoing international indicator initiatives and
highlights some problems in terms of gaps and inconsistencies among indicators. Section II
describes the prevailing situation in many developing countries and analyses the impact of
the activities of international organizations at the country level. The main problems at
international and national levels are summarized in box 2, at the end of section II. Section
III addresses the means of implementation. Section IV discusses some possible next steps,
including proposals for building statistical capacity at the country level and for improving
partnerships within the United Nations system and beyond.

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I. Indicator programmes at the international level

6. The United Nations Secretariat and international agencies, funds and programmes have
always contributed to the dissemination of indicators through regular publications and
analytical reports. These indicators are based largely on data obtained from countries by
specialized agencies (such as the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organization (UNESCO), the International Labour Organization (ILO), the Food and
Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the World Health Organization
(WHO) and the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO)) as well as
departments of the Secretariat and the regional commissions. Through long-standing
arrangements, agencies have clearly defined areas of responsibility with respect to collecting
data from countries8 and sharing them with other agencies and organizations. These data are
disseminated in electronic media or yearbooks, and are the main sources for the “flagship”
publications of agencies. Other initiatives, such as the United Nations Development
Programme (UNDP) Human Development Report and the World Bank World Development
Indicators which provide an important vehicle for the dissemination of development
indicators, also draw from these databases.
7. An Inventory of Statistical Data-collection Activities,9 conducted in 1995, revealed a
total of 312 data-collection activities reported by international organizations. While 195
collection activities were carried out by organizations such as the regional commissions, the
European Union (EU), and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development
(OECD) that cover only selected countries, 117 were carried out by global organizations
involving all countries. A list of organizations collecting data from countries with the number
of questionnaires is presented in annex IV.

A. Description of indicator programmes related to conferences

8. In response to the recent global conferences and summits, the demand for indicators
has increased in the international arena. A large number of indicators, ranging from 18 to 134,
is required for the follow-up of some of the recent conferences (see annex V). Some of these
indicators have long been collected nationally and compiled internationally by the United
Nations Secretariat and related organizations.10 In fact, some conference goals were
established in cognizance of the existence of data in the respective areas. Still, many of the
international organizations have expanded their work to include the compilation of additional
indicators for assessing progress towards conference goals. These initiatives fall into two
broad categories: (a) those carried out by international organizations in response to a single
conference, and (b) those undertaken to monitor a group of conferences in an integrated way.

1. Indicator initiatives responding to specific conferences

9. Annex V presents detailed information about some of the initiatives that were launched
in direct response to a particular conference. This list of initiatives (which does not include
many other sectoral and regional indicator initiatives 11 ) and the corresponding number of
indicators, clearly illuminates the potential burden these pose to countries. Programmes of
indicators developed in response to specific conferences vary from agency to agency. Three
types of initiatives can be distinguished:
(a) Recommendation of a core set of indicators: the agency disseminates a suggested
list of indicators with guidelines on its implementation. These initiatives do not entail new
collection of data by international organizations from countries. They aim to help the countries

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make relevant indicators available to national decision makers and encourage greater use of
data within countries. Examples of these initiatives are the Education for All Year 2000
Assessment (see box 1), the Work Programme on Indicators of Sustainable Development,
and the Food Insecurity Vulnerability Information and Mapping System (FIVIMS) to be
established at country level as a follow-up to the World Food Summit;

Box 1. Example of an indicator initiative for a conference follow-up:

Education for All Year 2000 Assessment

The Education for All (EFA) Year 2000 Assessment was planned by an inter-
agency Technical Advisory Group composed of the five main EFA-sponsoring
agencies: the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization
(UNESCO), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the World Bank, the
United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the United Nations Population
Fund (UNFPA). Based on the EFA goals, the Group selected 18 core EFA indicators
and developed the general and technical guidelines, together with model tabulations
for national reports. Originally 47 indicators were proposed but this was reduced
because of concerns about the reporting burden.

The Technical Advisory Group also requested that the 1999 UNESCO statistical
questionnaires be adapted and used as the main instrument for collecting national
aggregate statistics needed to produce the global report on EFA 2000. The UNESCO
questionnaires regularly gather statistics needed for deriving not only 14 of the 18
core EFA indicators, but also statistics on secondary and tertiary education that extend
beyond the scope of the EFA 2000 Assessment.

Each country has been requested to form a National EFA Committee to carry out
the assessment and prepare the national EFA report. These committees have been
asked to systematically involve the education statistical services within the Ministry
of Education and the National Statistical Office in collecting and producing the
required EFA statistics and indicators. These services are often those that are
responsible for responding to the UNESCO annual statistical questionnaires.

(b) Repackaging of existing indicator series with the aim of producing new
publications or databases to follow up on the conference. Examples of this type of initiative
include World Employment Report 1998–99: Employability in the Global Economy: How
Training Matters,12 published by ILO, which addresses the concern about “sustainable
livelihoods” of the World Summit for Social Development; and The World’s Women,
1970–1980 13 (published in 1991), The World’s Women, 1995 14 (published in 1995) and a
third issue which the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations
Secretariat is preparing for the special session of the General Assembly in the year 2000
entitled “Women 2000: gender equality, development and peace for the twenty-first century”.
Of the same type, but which does not respond to any particular conference, is the compilation
of indicators by the Office of the Special Coordinator for Africa and the Least Developed
Countries to monitor the achievement of priority programmes of the United Nations System-
wide Special Initiative for the Implementation of the United Nations New Agenda for the
Development of Africa in the 1990s;

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(c) Development of a new data-collection activity: the agency, in accordance with

its mandates, selects a set of indicators that specifically address measuring progress towards
achieving the conference goals, and undertakes to collect from countries the underlying data
to compile these indicators. These indicators are then compiled and disseminated on a regular
or ad hoc basis. Examples are the set of indicators that WHO collects every three years from
countries to guide the evaluation of Health for All strategies; the multiple indicator cluster
survey sponsored by UNICEF to assist countries in obtaining data for reviewing the
implementation of the mid-decade goals of the World Summit for Children; and the
compilation of a list of indicators by the United Nations Centre for Human Settlements
(Habitat) as a continuation of the work that began as part of the preparation for the United
Nations Conference on Human Settlements (Habitat II) conference.

2. Cross-conference initiatives
10. Recently, initiatives have been undertaken to take a more integrated approach by
considering several conferences.15 This work generally involves inter-agency collaboration
and aims to define a common set of indicators for goals from four or more conferences. The
most recent of these initiatives are the common country assessment indicators of the United
Nations Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF-CCA), the Minimum National Social
Data Set (MNSDS), adopted by the Statistical Commission, the indicators for basic social
services for all (BSSA) of the Task Force on Basic Social Services for All of the
Administrative Committee on Coordination (ACC) and the Organisation for Economic
Cooperation and Development-Development Assistance Committee (OECD-DAC) indicators,
developed in collaboration with the United Nations and the World Bank. Annex VI presents
these initiatives, describing their purposes and the number of indicators included.
11. There have been attempts at harmonization of these core sets. In particular, the recent
process of revising the UNDAF-CCA indicator framework has significantly improved the
match between the CCA indicators, the largest list, and other indicator sets. Only 3 indicators
of the MNSDS,16 and 1 out of the 21 core indicators in the OECD-United Nations-World Bank
set, are not included in the UNDAF-CCA list (see annex VII).

B. Gaps and inconsistencies in indicators at the international level

12. The various indicator-related activities undertaken by international organizations have

been beneficial in several ways. They have promoted the use of statistics not only for
reviewing progress towards conference goals, but also for designing agency programmes and
interventions at country level. In addition, they have generated discussions on data
requirements and the needs for improvement in definitions, methods and estimation
procedures. Moreover, as a result of the increased demand for indicators and for their
dissemination, problems with respect to coverage, reliability, intertemporal and intercountry
comparability of the statistical series have been exposed. Two major problems with
international compilations — gaps and inconsistencies among indicators17 — are discussed
in the present section. Some ways to address these problems are suggested in section IV.

1. Gaps
13. Gaps in statistical information at the international level are due to (a) lack of data at
the national level, (b) non-response by countries or (c) absence of a systematic international
effort to compile indicators and statistics on specific topics, which may exist at the country
level. Non-response is no doubt a function of the reporting burden put on countries, with over

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100 questionnaires being sent to each country (see para. 7 above). 18 An analysis of the
international database of the United Nations Statistics Division in 1998 concluded that for
66 United Nations member countries official national data on gross domestic product (GDP)
and its standard breakdown had not been available for any year since 1992. Only 82 of the
185 States Members of the United Nations reported the full set of major macroeconomic
aggregates in the last five years.19 This is despite the fact that economic statistics, and in
particular national accounts, are well-established statistical areas, with internationally agreed
upon standards and methodologies and with a history of data collection. Similar problems
exist in the area of demographic statistics.
14. Another example concerns adult literacy. A look at the UNESCO 1998 Statistical
Yearbook reveals that, out of 164 countries and territories covered, the only data available
for some 55 developing countries are either estimates or data referring to 1985 or earlier.20
An assessment of availability of data on 12 socio-economic indicators (included in the
MNSDS) showed other examples of serious gaps in some indicators and paucity of recent
data for even the traditional topics, for example, life expectancy and employment-population
ratio (see annex VIII), where a systematic process of data collection has long been established.
15. The gaps are even more serious for areas where there are no established mechanisms
for collecting data from countries, such as average number of years of schooling completed,
monetary value of the basket of food needed for minimum nutritional requirement, and
household income per capita (level and distribution). Other examples are primarily for “new”
policy issues for which there are no agreed concepts and measurements, as is the case for
governance, violence against women and unremunerated work. However, even for those issues
that have been discussed for some time (for example, the informal sector, poverty, and the
environment), definition and measurement problems persist.

2. Inconsistencies among indicators

16. There are overlaps in the international organizations’ work on indicators, which result
in duplications either in the collection of data from countries or in the dissemination of the
indicators. There are obviously degrees of seriousness with regard to duplication —
duplication in the dissemination of data may well be justified to make them as widely available
as possible or inasmuch as two distinct international organizations look at similar phenomena
from different angles.21 Equally, parallel efforts in the selection and definition of new
indicators, for example, in the field of the environment, may lead under certain circumstances
to stimulating debate within the United Nations system, and to more relevant and widely
acceptable sets. On the other hand, duplications in the collection and processing of basic data
can hardly be justified. These not only lead to inconsistencies in published data and confuse
the audiences, but also cause distortions in national resources and overtax countries
needlessly.
17. Annex IX presents illustrative examples of inconsistencies in indicators provided by
different international organizations. There are several reasons for which seemingly identical
indicators appear with different numerical values in international publications:
(a) Indicators may in fact reflect distinct phenomena even though they seem to be
the same. An example is per capita GDP in United States dollars. The market exchange rate-
based indicator and the “purchasing power parity” (PPP)-based indicator serve two different
purposes. Careful labelling of the indicators in question helps to avoid confusion or
misinterpretation;
(b) Different definitions may be applied to the same indicator: for example, access
to safe drinking water is an important health indicator, but there is as yet no single or

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commonly agreed definition for “access”. In some cases, the criterion used is walking distance
from household to the water source; in others it is time required to go from household to the
water source;22
(c) Data discrepancies may have been inherited from the national level where there
are inconsistent national sources. Different international organizations tend to have different
contacts at the national level from which data are obtained, as is sometimes the case with
national accounts figures which could come from the national statistical office or from the
central bank;
(d) Different compilation or estimation techniques are used at the international
level: international organizations often make their own estimates of country indicators,
because the base information is either simply not available, or not available in sufficient detail
(for example, in respect of country coverage, periodicity) or because it needs to be
standardized to ensure international comparability or to derive regional and global aggregates;
(e) Base data may come from different points in time of the processing cycle: the
country data may refer to provisional estimates or final estimates for a given reference period,
depending on when the international organization requested the country data.

II. Situation at country level

18. The ability of countries to meet the challenges of development, reflected in increasing
and/or changing demands for indicators, depends most crucially on the existence of basic data
collected through a well-established national statistical system. Many countries have
difficulties in meeting the demands for statistics emanating both from within their countries
and from outside even without the extra demands placed upon them by the resolutions of
conferences. Although international organizations have long supported data-collection
activities at country level, problems of quality, recency and availability of data persist.

A. Capacity of countries to produce indicators

19. The extent to which countries have responded to the demand pressures has depended
very much on the degree to which the three major sources of data — (a) censuses, (b) sample
surveys, and (c) administrative records — have been developed. As regards these three major
sources:
(a) The population census is the most common source of information on the size of
the population and its geographical distribution, as well as basic characteristics such as age,
marital status and educational attainment. Yet, not all countries are able to conduct a census
at the desirable interval of every ten years.23 As many as 35 countries and areas did not conduct
a census in the 1990 round of censuses (that is to say, during the period 1985–1994) and 19
countries have still not indicated any date for the 2000 round (1995–2004);24
(b) In addition to population censuses, national sample surveys are indispensable
for collecting information on economic, demographic, social and a variety of other issues.
Many developing countries conduct such surveys as an integral part of their national statistics
programmes. Improvement is often required, however, with respect to coverage of topics,
relevance of concepts and definitions, coverage of specific groups and timely dissemination
of results. For some surveys, for example, household sample surveys, developing countries
frequently depend on external support. Consequently, the timing of the surveys and the
coverage of issues may not respond adequately to the data needs for development planning

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in general, or specifically for the follow-up to the conferences. Moreover, some issues require
surveys that are conducted at shorter intervals than many countries are currently able to
support. For example, in order to capture the seasonality and intermittence of economic
activities in predominantly agricultural economies, at least quarterly labour-force surveys
are needed;
(c) Administrative records, such as civil registration, education and employment
registers, require substantial improvements in many countries in order to become a viable
source of information. Civil registration, as the main source of data for indicators like maternal
mortality, infant mortality, child mortality and fertility rate, is still weak in many of the
developing countries and almost entirely lacking outside urban areas. In 46 out of 184
reporting countries registration covers less than 90 per cent of total births and in 45 out of
179 reporting countries, it covers less than 90 per cent of total deaths.25 When they are
developed, administrative registers can provide, on at least an annual basis, information on
vital statistics and on statistics in sectors such as education, health and labour, and for topics
such as migration, refugees and enterprise development.
20. The major problems of national data can be summarized in relation to (a) availability
of data, (b) comprehensiveness of coverage with respect to geographical areas or population
sub-groups, (c) relevance of concepts and methods of data collection, (d) timeliness of data,
(e) comparability of different sources and (f) accessibility of the data. These factors may be
described as follows:
(a) Availability of data relates to the coverage of topics and issues within the
statistical system and the years for which basic data are available. Data availability is often
determined by both financial and historical factors. In general, since statistical activities are
often inadequately funded, even in developed countries but particularly in developing
countries, statistical systems rationalize resource constraints by limiting the number of issues
covered and the frequency of data-collection exercises. The coverage is limited in some cases
to topics for which there is either national experience or international standards and
recommendations which facilitate data collection, or for which external support is available.
There are also situations where the demand for data on specific topics (for example, poverty,
social exclusion, violence against women, environment) is relatively new and either there
is limited experience on how data are to be collected or relevant concepts and methods have
been neither developed nor adequately tested;
(b) Comprehensiveness of coverage is most relevant to the data obtained from vital
and civil registers, and administrative records, which do not as yet provide complete
geographical coverage in many countries. In addition, sample surveys and qualitative studies,
such as the rapid assessment approach, are common sources for data on a large number of
economic, social and demographic issues; but they are not always large enough to provide
reliable estimates on indicators for smaller population groups, such as indigenous populations,
or on characteristics such as disability that affect a very small proportion of the population;
(c) Relevance of concepts and methods: international standards on concepts and
methods need to be tested and adapted to national circumstances so as to avoid biased
estimates. For example, since women’s economic activities in many developing countries
tend to be seasonal or intermittent and many are in unpaid employment, enumerators need
to be specially trained to capture women’s participation;
(d) Timeliness of data relates to the time-span between the actual data collection and
the release of the results. This issue is more pertinent to some indicators than to others.
Whereas structural indicators such as the adult literacy rate change only slowly over time,

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other indicators, for example, GDP and food production, may change rapidly and therefore
need to be measured frequently in order to remain relevant;
(e) Comparability of different sources is a problem when different sources are
combined. Better coordination between producers of data at the national level can ensure that
comparable concepts are adopted. When different sources are combined, users need to be
alerted to the differences and their implications;
(f) Accessibility to the data: existing data are generally not fully utilized.
Underutilization of data is due to the fact on one hand that users are not made aware of the
full range of data available, including published and non-published forms of the data, and on
the other hand that data are not presented in the formats that users need.

B. Impact of international actions at country level

21. For at least the past three decades, international organizations and bilateral donors have
provided support to countries to improve the availability and quality of data. Programmes
of support from organizations can be classified into two types: (a) internationally generated
and standardized packages for the collection of data on specific topics and (b) assistance
aimed at strengthening the data-collection capacity of a country or targeting a specific data-
collection effort within a country’s regular statistical programme.
22. The first category includes: the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS), a successor
to the World Fertility Survey (WFS); the Living Standards Measurement Study (LSMS); the
Multiple-Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS);26 and the International Comparison Programme
(ICP). Technical and financial support have been provided to ensure implementation of these
programmes. Although the programmes may include a capacity-building component, the
primary objective is to generate data on the specific topic. Assistance is therefore often outside
the regular programme of data collection already existing in the country. Although not a data-
collection exercise, the General Data Dissemination System (GDDS) is also included here
as an internationally initiated programme that seeks to improve the dissemination of national
data. These activities are described in more detail in annex X.
23. The second category includes the financial support that international organizations give
to countries in direct response to their request. The support often aims at assisting countries
in collecting data through one or more of the following means: a population census; specific
types of household surveys; enterprise surveys; civil and vital registration; and other
administrative sources. Many international agencies and organizations support developing
countries in respect of their gathering the requisite baseline data needed for planning and
monitoring development programmes, and building national capacity to produce the necessary
data regularly.
24. In addition to the financial support given to countries, several specialized agencies and
the United Nations Secretariat provide technical guidance through handbooks and manuals.
The purpose of these technical documents is to disseminate information on the concepts,
definitions and methods of collecting and analysing data on different topics. Further technical
support is provided through training workshops and direct technical cooperation programmes.
25. The international actions described above have certainly had a positive impact on the
national statistical systems, increasing the availability of data on selected topics and building
in some instances national statistical capacity. However, the resources and orientation of
assistance programmes have not always matched the internal needs of and the external
demands placed on countries. As long as the interests of international organizations coincide

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with national policy priorities, national data needs are met; but in cases where these interests
and national priorities diverge, there is a serious danger that scarce human resources will be
diverted to areas of statistical activity of lower country priority.
26. In general, there needs to be more emphasis placed on building the capacity of countries
related to all stages of the information process, ranging from data collection to the analysis
and dissemination of statistics and indicators. Capacity is not built when data are processed
and analysed outside the country or when the official statistical apparatus is not involved in
the data collection. This may occur when, as a result of an open bidding process, institutions
outside of the official statistical system are awarded the data-collection contracts.
27. Discrepancies between statistics and indicators from national sources and those from
international sources are another issue of concern. For example, an international agency
estimated that, in a country, 51 per cent of the population were living below the poverty line.
In contrast, according to a published government source, based on a national survey the figure
for the same indicator was 20 per cent. Such discrepancies may result when organizations
collect their own data at country level or make adjustments to basic data provided by countries
or make their own estimates based on certain models. While the need for adjusted international
data series is widely recognized, confusion can arise for users of the data when the distinction
between adjusted data and underlying data is not made clear. Furthermore, discrepancies in
published data which are significant and yet remain unexplained undermine the credibility
of national statistics. Agreements on international standards for the definition and
measurement of indicators, clear labelling and data source notes can help.
28. Indicator series developed for cross-national comparison sometimes use indirect or
model-based estimates to fill in gaps in the underlying data. On the one hand, this is frequently
the best that can be done to obtain a consistent cross-national overview; on the other hand,
it is always a poor substitute for having good data to begin with. Moreover, as countries are
aware that international estimates are being produced and because of the widespread
perception of internationally disseminated statistics being more reliable, this may in some
cases create a disincentive for countries to report data or to undertake further efforts to
improve their data collection.

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Box 2
Statement of the main problems discussed in sections I and II

The main problems discussed in sections I and II may be stated as follows:

• Lack of basic data: In too many countries, basic information, in particular for
“newer” areas of policy concerns (for example, environment, gender, poverty),
is not available;

• Proliferation of indicators: The sheer volume of development indicators and

the lack of information on how similar indicators are related often make it
difficult and confusing for analysts and decision makers to use them;

• Overburdening of national statistical systems: Competing demands and the

proliferation of internationally formulated indicator sets increase the reporting
burden on national statistical agencies;

• Ad hoc data-collection efforts by some organizations to meet their own

information needs: These efforts crowd out limited financial and human
resources and thus interfere with regular national statistical programmes;

• Inconsistencies among indicators: The fact that, even when seemingly

identical indicators are being referred to, differences can exist in the definition
and underlying concepts, in the use of data sources, in the compilation method,
in the periodicity and so forth, which lead to different numerical values;

• Integrity of indicators: Sources, definitions and compilation/estimation

methods are not always made explicit. The lack of adequate referencing and
of technical notes deprives the user of the ability to make an informed quality
assessment.

III. Means of implementation

29. The conferences during the 1990s set a large number of goals to be achieved over the
coming years. The previous sections of this report have focused on the indicators to measure
progress towards these goals and in this context have analysed the statistical capacity of
developing countries. At the same time, conferences nonetheless recognized that achieving
these goals required the promotion of a favourable national and international environment.
They recognized that ultimately each country bears primary responsibility for its own
economic and social development. Notwithstanding the importance of domestic policies,
however, the conferences underscored the importance of a favourable international economic
environment and of international cooperation for achieving conference goals.
30. In this respect, developed countries at conferences pledged to support developing
countries’ efforts to achieve conference goals. The type of support pledged went beyond mere
technical and financial cooperation to include working towards trade liberalization, enhanced
financial stability and improved cooperation in the formulation of macroeconomic policies.
The extent to which these support commitments are being met is also in need of review.

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31. Monitoring progress towards promoting a national and international environment

supportive of conference goals goes beyond the scope of this report, and is addressed in other
reports before the Economic and Social Council, notably the World Economic and Social
Survey. The present section highlights a few issues related to the monitoring of commitments
by developed countries in the area of resources.
32. Considerable financial resources are required to meet the conference goals and initial
estimates were made at the time of the conferences.27 Although it is generally recognized that
the most important contributions for development have to be made by the developing countries
themselves, in many countries external resources are needed. The 1998 OECD/DAC report28
states in this context that “aid targeted on countries most in need, focused on agreed
development objectives, and provided in a context of improving local efforts and policies can
make the difference between meeting and failing to reach agreed development goals”.
33. Although more work needs to be done to monitor the resources being devoted to the
achievement of the goals, initial analysis by the OECD/DAC has shown that, while more aid
has been targeted to the social sectors, the share of aid going to the countries furthest away
from the goals has declined slightly (even within a declining aid volume), making achievement
of the goals even harder.
34. The most direct indicator of aid flows is the share of official development assistance
(ODA) provided by a donor country as a percentage of its gross national product (GNP), for
which the United Nations has set a target of 0.7 per cent. This indicator is monitored routinely
by OECD/DAC. Only four bilateral donors meet this target and it is of great concern that ODA
has been declining continuously for over five years.29 ODA fell to 0.22 per cent of the
combined GNP of DAC member countries in 1997, the lowest percentage ever. Cuts in aid
budgets of some of the Group of Seven major industrialized countries, in particular,
contributed to that decline. Although foreign direct investments have been on the increase,
they fluctuate considerably and in any case affect only marginally the poorest countries and
do not contribute significantly to essential investments in social development or the
environment. Also, these investments do not serve general institutional improvements, such
as for instance the statistical capacity of a country. In addition to the reduction in ODA, debt
servicing continues in many poor countries to reduce the availability of domestic resources
for conference implementation, despite the various initiatives taken to address the problems
of external indebtedness of developing countries.
35. Another more qualitative indicator of donor commitment is the allocation of increasingly
scarce aid resources to poverty reduction and to the provision of essential health and education
services (see box 3). DAC — through its system of recording aid flows by both bilateral and
multilateral donors — has undertaken to do more work on relating aid and other resource
inputs to the achievement of conference outcomes and to report on this regularly.

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Box 3
The 20/20 initiative

The 20/20 initiative calls on Governments and donors to allocate at least 20 per
cent of public spending and official development assistance (ODA), respectively,
to basic social services (basic education and primary health care, including
reproductive health and population programmes, nutrition programmes, and safe
drinking water and sanitation). Statistics for some 30 countries showed that
Governments allocate on average 12–14 per cent to basic social services, which is
below what is needed to reach universal coverage of basic social services in the next
10–15 years. The donor share was estimated to be 15 per cent.

According to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development/

Development Assistance Committee (OECD/DAC), there is a trend towards better
targeting of aid resources in regard to addressing internationally agreed development
goals. However, most donors need to drastically increase — double according to the
United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) — the share of their resources
going to basic social services. The 20/20 initiative should also help Governments
to enhance the share of domestic resources allocated to basic social services. The
Hanoi meeting on the 20/20 initiative called upon Governments to reform their budget
processes to ensure that basic social services receive high priority.

Data-collection and reporting systems on the initiative need to be further

improved, both at the country level and from the donor side.a At this stage, for
instance, data on sectoral allocation of multilateral aid are available only for the
World Bank and regional development banks, and not for other United Nations
organizations (although some provide estimates in this respect), according to
OECD/DAC.
_______________
a
Hanoi meeting on the 20/20 initiative, 27–29 October 1998, draft report.

36. Monitoring the resources going into the implementation of specific major conferences
is notoriously difficult. A partial effort has been undertaken by the United Nations Population
Fund (UNFPA) to monitor the flow of resources allocated to the four areas of population,
which were costed in the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population
and Development30 (see box 4). As regards Agenda 21, 31 the Department of Economic and
Social Affairs of the United Nations Secretariat reviews the share of ODA allocated to the
main areas thereof, based on OECD/DAC data. In addition, the recently approved
questionnaire on the implementation of the Beijing Platform of Action32 aims at the collection
of information on the percentage of the overall budget allocated for women-specific
policies/programmes.

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Box 4
Monitoring of financial resources for assisting the implementation of the
Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population
and Development

At the request of the Commission on Population and Development, the United

Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) monitors external assistance for population
activities. It also evaluates domestic resource flows originating from Governments,
the private sector and non-governmental organizations, through a constantly
improving data system developed in collaboration with a Netherlands non-
governmental organization.

The evaluations made for the five-year review of the International Conference
on Population and Development reveal that international assistance for population
and reproductive health increased by 54 per cent from the pre-Conference period,
to slightly over $2 billion in 1996, which represents roughly 35 per cent of the target
agreed at Cairo for international assistance. The figure then declined to $1.9 billion
in 1997.

Domestic financial resources from Governments and non-governmental

organizations are estimated to have been about $7 billion annually during the period
1996–1997, and an additional $1 billion is estimated to have been provided by
individuals and households.

37. Other recent initiatives by developed countries include working for greater consistency
among development cooperation, trade and investment policies. At their 1998 meeting, OECD
ministers called for “a report in 1999 on the links between trade and investment and
development, and the role that the OECD might play in promoting greater policy coherence”
(Ministerial Statement). This would help to meet the call made by the Economic and Social
Council in 1997 for greater coherence between macroeconomic, trade, financial and
development policies, in particular to maximize the impact of development cooperation. 33
38. Finally, it should be noted that trends in public expenditure (social, environmental),
gross domestic savings, ODA and other external financial sources, as well as efforts to solve
external indebtedness of the poorer countries and broader aspects of macroeconomic and
financial policies, are monitored as broad indicators of the economic and financial enabling
environment for implementing conference goals.

IV. Possible next steps

39. A genuine commitment of all concerned parties at the national as well as the
international level is needed to ensure a routine flow of reliable statistics and indicators at
the country level, which meets national needs for information, and for the integrated and
coordinated follow-up to global conferences and summits. In this regard, a practical and
incremental approach which builds upon existing mechanisms is needed. Four main areas
are presented for consideration:

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(a) Building national statistical capacity in basic data collection and dissemination
of indicators:
(i) A programmatic approach is needed so that the international community and
national Governments work closely together in strengthening the physical infrastructure
and human resources capabilities, based on medium-term statistical development
strategies, which have been formulated in accordance with national policy.34 With regard
to improving the availability of data, the census remains the most comprehensive form
of basic data collection. International organizations and bilateral donors have provided
extensive support to countries’ censuses in the past. This needs to be continued and
expanded;
(ii) In addition, a targeted international programme to build capacity should include
sample surveys. It could build on experiences gained, for example, through the National
Household Survey Capability Programme (NHSCP), which was implemented by the
United Nations Statistics Division and supported by UNDP, UNFPA, UNICEF and
the World Bank (see annex X). Such a programme would seek to build upon existing
programmes of assistance and establish operational links between them. Moreover, such
a programme would support national human resource development efforts through the
provision of handbooks and training in areas such as sample frame design and
geographical information systems, questionnaire design, and the analysis and
dissemination of results. In order to mobilize the required resources, higher priority
needs to be given to statistics and indicators in planning, budgeting and funding of
programmes. This requires a concerted effort to increase awareness among policy
makers at both the national and the international level as to the importance of relevant,
sound and up-to-date statistics;
(b) Convening a “high level” group of major funding agencies and the Department
of Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations Secretariat, including possibly some
bilateral donors involved in general statistical capacity-building, to coordinate and harmonize
support for data-collection and capacity-building exercises in countries. In order to build
statistical capacity on a long-term basis, support needs to be pooled and based on a
comprehensive needs assessment. The group would ensure that activities and funding
programmes of the agencies were synergistic with each other. The work of such a group would
be facilitated if all major funding agencies had clearly identified high-level focal points for
statistical development, whose function it was to coordinate and harmonize statistical activities
and projects within the agency;
(c) Strengthening existing mechanisms for coordinating indicator initiatives among
international organizations, such as ACC and its subsidiary bodies, to eliminate information
inconsistencies and gaps at the international level:
(i) The ACC Subcommittee on Statistical Activities, supported by an advisory group
of country experts, could facilitate the dialogue between organizations to resolve
methodological questions and provide guidance for increased transparency35 on
indicators via the provision of metadata.36 As a first step towards analysing gaps and
inconsistencies, the ACC Subcommittee on Statistical Activities was invited to give
consideration to the request of the Task Force on the Enabling Environment for
Economic and Social Development that the Statistics Division prepare an inventory
of the production and dissemination of the development indicators being used to review
the implementation of conference goals.37 The inventory forms the basis for a United
Nations Web site for development indicators which could serve as a road map — for
external and internal users — as regards where to find information available in the
United Nations system with links to data sources where available. A prototype of the

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Web site has been developed based on the United Nations Statistics Division data and
indicators from UNESCO, ILO and FAO. The coverage of the Web site needs to be
extended to include other United Nations agencies, funds and programmes, as well as
the Bretton Woods institutions. This would create an effective information centre and
would significantly enhance the analytical power of this tool for improved coordination
in the production and dissemination of indicators. However, considerable resources
will be needed to complete and maintain this extended Web site;
(ii) In order to reduce the burden on countries of multiple questionnaires, a data-
collection plan based on the principle of one indicator/one source/one lead organization
is needed. This implies that data for each core indicator would be collected only once
by one international lead organization and from one pre-specified national source.38
There exist good examples of common data collection by international organizations
and these experiences need to be analysed, shared and applied where possible;
(d) Developing a system of indicator sets:
(i) The centrepiece of this system should be a basic core set that satisfies key
requirements of national and international information demands. The core set may be
augmented by specific national, regional or sectoral indicators in accordance with the
particular needs of the user(s) and with the capabilities of the data providers. The core
set would have to be defined and updated in a broad-based consultative process. A
forum with combined inter-agency and intergovernmental representation (for example,
the ACC Subcommittee on Statistical Activities plus the Bureau of the Statistical
Commission) could be considered the appropriate body to manage the updating process.
It is crucial that national users and producers of information also be fully consulted at
all stages. As a general principle, whenever new indicators are proposed at the
international level, it should be required that a strong case would need to be made,
presenting evidence, for the relevance of the newly proposed indicator and analysing
the costs associated with collecting the necessary data. There should also be a regular
examination to determine whether the dissemination of any existing indicators and the
associated data-collection processes could be eliminated;
(ii) It may be necessary to employ a thematic approach within the core in order to
focus the discussion on areas such as environment, health and education, or cross-
cutting issues such as gender and poverty. The present indicator framework contained
in the CCA guidelines (see para. 10), which is harmonized with the OECD/United
Nations/World Bank indicators, provides a good starting point for the development of
such a core set.39 Once such a core set has been defined, clear guidance on standard
definitions, on data-collection or estimation methods, and on the dissemination and use
of the indicators is indispensable. Where weaknesses or gaps are identified in the core
set of indicators, for example, in specific countries, these should be addressed through
the programme(s) referred to in paragraph 39 (a).
40. The Economic and Social Council is the only forum where all concerned parties can
come together, including the Bretton Woods institutions and other international stakeholders,
such as OECD. The Council may therefore wish to request periodic briefings on progress
in the following areas: (a) eliminating indicator inconsistencies, (b) filling information gaps,
(c) developing a core set of indicators and (d) building national statistical capacity. In addition,
the Council could encourage both the efforts of OECD/DAC to monitor the share of aid
allocated to conference objectives and the collaboration of United Nations system
organizations in these efforts.

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Notes

1
While there are technical differences between statistics and indicators, the two are intrinsically linked
and therefore for the purpose of the present report the terms are used interchangeably.
2
A list of major conferences and summits is contained in annex I to this report.
3
The following are some examples of explicit numerical targets contained in conference documents:
“By the year 2000, provide universal access to basic education and ensure completion of primary
education by at least 80 per cent of primary school-age children” (Beijing Platform for Action (Report
of the Fourth World Conference on Women, Beijing, 4–15 September 1995 (United Nations
publication, Sales No. E.96.IV.13), chap. I, resolution 1, annex II) para. 80 (b)); “Countries should
strive to reduce their infant and under-5 mortality rates by one third ... by the year 2000”, and “By
2015, all countries should aim to achieve an infant mortality rate below 35 per 1,000 live births”
(Report of the International Conference on Population and Development, Cairo, 5–13 September
1994 (United Nations publication, Sales No. E.95.XIII.18), chap. I, resolution 1, annex), para. 8.16).
4
See, for example, the Copenhagen Declaration on Social Development, ( Report of the World Summit
for Social Development, Copenhagen, 6–12 March 1995 (United Nations publication, Sales No.
E.96.IV.8), chap. I, resolution 1, annex I), sect. C, commitment 9 (d); and Beijing Platform for Action,
strategic objective H.3 (para. 206).
5
As noted in the summary by the President of the Economic and Social Council, “In order to effectively
monitor progress in the implementation of conferences at the country level, there is an urgent need for
the multilateral system to develop a coherent set of basic indicators, as well as a need to strengthen the
capacity of the United Nations system and of countries to collect and analyse statistics” (Official
Records of the General Assembly, Fifty-third Session, Supplement No. 3 (A/53/3 and Add.1 and
Corr.1), chap. III, para. 23, sect. VI).
6
See Economic and Social Council decision 1998/298 of 31 July 1998, para. (e).
7
A more detailed presentation of the criteria to be applied in the selection and dissemination of
indicators is provided in annex III.
8
International organizations sometimes produce estimates and projections by using statistical models.
Examples are population estimates calculated by the Population Division of the United Nations
Secretariat, estimates and projections of the labour force prepared by the International Labour
Organization (ILO), and the average years of schooling calculated by the United Nations Educational,
Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
9
United Nations Statistics Division, “Inventory of Statistical Data-collection Activities”, 1995.
10
For example, at the international level the Population Division of the United Nations Secretariat has
for decades produced estimates of life expectancy at birth, infant mortality and, more recently, child
mortality.
11
For example, the ILO programme on Key Indicators of the Labour Market (KILM), WHO task force
indicators on reproductive health, the work of the Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia
(ESCWA) on the integrated follow-up to conferences, Economic Commission for Latin America and
the Caribbean (ECLAC) work on poverty indicators and the Economic and Social Commission for
Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) programme for updating of Statistical Indicators for Asia and the
Pacific.
12
Geneva, International Labour Office, 1998.
13
Social Statistics and Indicators, No. 8 (United Nations publication, Sales No. E.90.XVII.3).
14
Social Statistics and Indicators, No. 12 (United Nations publication, Sales No. E.95.XVII.2 and
Corr.1).
15
See, for example, the report of the Economic and Social Council for 1997 (Official Records of the
General Assembly, Fifty-second Session, Supplement No. 3 (A/52/3/Rev.1)) where the Council urged
the consideration of gender mainstreaming in the integrated follow-up to global United Nations
conferences.
16
These three indicators were found not to be compiled at the international level. See the report of the
Secretary-General on harmonization and rationalization of development indicators in the United
Nations system (E/CN.3/1999/14), para. 7.
17
See also T. N. Srinivasan, “Data base for development analysis: an overview”, Journal of
Development Economics, vol. 44 (1994), pp. 3–27; and W. P. Mauldin, “Maternal mortality in

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developing countries: comparison of rates from two international compendia”, Population and
Development Review, vol. 20, No. 2 (1994), pp. 413–421.
18
Many countries have stated that the burden of reporting is great. For example, two developed
countries have specified that one full-time member of staff is assigned the task of simply coordinating
the reporting of statistics to international organizations. Additional staff time has to be allocated to
completing the questionnaires.
19
See report of the Secretary-General on the milestone assessment of the implementation of the System
of National Accounts, 1993, by Member States (E/CN.3/1999/3), presented to the Statistical
Commission at its thirtieth session, 1–5 March 1999.
20
Paris, UNESCO, 1998.
21
United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD), “Review of United Nations
Social ‘Flagship’ Reports”, para. 34, 1997.
22
World Health Organization and others, Water Supply and Sanitation Sector Monitoring Report 1996,
sector status as of 31 December 1994 (WHO/EOS/96.15).
23
As recommended in Principles and Recommendations for Population and Housing Censuses
Revision 1, Statistical Papers, No. 67/Rev.1 (United Nations publication, Sales No. E.98.XVII.8).
24
Progress report of the Secretary-General on demographic, social and migration statistics
(E/CN.3/1999/9).
25
Commission on Population and Development, “World population monitoring, 1999: population
growth, structure and distribution” (ESA/P/WP.147), working paper available at the thirty-second
session of the Commission, 22–24 March 1999.
26
Rather than do a separate survey, 40 out of the 100 countries in which MICS were carried out at mid-
decade included a module of the additional questions required in existing household surveys.
27
For example, the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development estimated an average
annual cost for implementation between 1993 and 2000 at over $600 billion, including $125 billion
from the international community. The International Conference on Population and Development
estimated that, in developing countries and countries with economies in transition, the implementation
of integrated population and reproductive health programmes would cost $17.0 billion in 2000 and
increase to $21.7 billion in 2015. At the World Summit for Children, the cost was estimated in 1990
at about $20 billion. The World Summit for Social Development, the Fourth World Conference on
Women and the United Nations Conference on Human Settlements (Habitat II) did not cost their
programmes of action.
28
Efforts and Policies of the Members of the Development Assistance Committee, 1998 Report on
Development Cooperation (Paris, Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, 1998).
29
The cumulative decline of ODA (at constant prices and exchange rates) has, from 1992 to the present,
reached almost 25 per cent.
30
Report of the International Conference on Population and Development, Cairo, 5–13 September
1994 (United Nations publication, Sales No. E.95.XIII.18), chap. I, resolution 1, annex.
31
Report of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, Rio de Janeiro, 3–14
June 1992, vol. I, Resolution Adopted by the Conference (United Nations publication, Sales No.
E.93.I.8 and corrigendum), resolution 1, annex II.
32
Report of the Fourth World Conference on Women, Beijing, 4–15 September 1995 (United Nations
publication, Sales No. E.96.IV.13), chap. I, resolution 1, annex II.
33
Agreed conclusions 1997/1 of the Economic and Social Council on “Fostering an enabling
environment for development: financial flows, including capital flows, investment and trade” (see
Official Records of the General Assembly, Fifty-second Session, Supplement No. 3 (A/52/3/Rev.1),
chap. II, para. 5).
34
See note by the Secretariat on some guiding principles for good practices in technical cooperation for
statistics (E/CN.3/1999/19), recently adopted by the Statistical Commission, 1999.
35
Transparency would include feedback from international organizations to data providers on the use
and interpretation of their basic data.
36
See, for example, United Nations Statistics Division, “Common Code for Statistical Practices in the
United Nations System”, April 1996.

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37
See the report of the ACC Subcommittee on Statistical Activities on its thirty-second session (New
York, 16–18 June 1998) (ACC/1998/14), para. 2 (a), for further details. The Executive Committee on
Economic and Social Affairs endorsed the proposal of a Website at its 10th meeting (New York, 16
May 1998).
38
Data collection from one national source could only be ensured if a national coordinating mechanism
was in place (see also para. 20 (e) of the present report).
39
This model for collaboration also fits into the recently proposed “Comprehensive Development
Framework” of the World Bank.

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Annex I
List of selected global conferences, conventions and
declarations
International conference Year Host city

World Conference on Education for All: Meeting Basic Learning 1990 Jomtien
Needs
World Summit for Children 1990 New York
United Nations Conference on Environment and Development 1992 Rio de Janeiro
International Conference on Nutrition 1992 Rome
World Conference on Human Rights 1993 Vienna
International Conference on Population and Development 1994 Cairo
Global Conference on the Sustainable Development of Small Island 1994 Bridgetown
Developing States
World Summit for Social Development 1995 Copenhagen
Fourth World Conference on Women 1995 Beijing
Ninth United Nations Congress on the Prevention of Crime and the 1995 Cairo
Treatment of Offenders
United Nations Conference on Human Settlements (Habitat II) 1996 Istanbul
World Food Summit 1996 Rome
Ninth session of the United Nations Conference on Trade and 1996 Midrand
Development
First World Conference of Ministers Responsible for Youth 1998 Lisbon
Special session of the General Assembly devoted to the fight against 1998 New York
the illicit production, sale, demand, traffic and distribution of narcotic
drugs and psychotropic substances and related activities

International Convention or Declaration Year

Universal Declaration of Human Rights 1948

Declaration of the Rights of the Child 1959
International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination 1965
International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights 1966
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights 1966
Declaration on the Rights of Disabled Persons 1975
Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women 1979
Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment 1984
Declaration on the Right to Development 1986
Convention on the Rights of the Child 1989
Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic 1992
Minorities

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Annex II
Expert Group Meeting on Development Indicators
New York, 8–10 March 1999

List of participants

Name Title Country/organization

Ms. Leisa Perch Environment Division Ministry of Barbados

Environment, Energy and Natural
Resources
Ms. Waltraud Moore Head, Department of Inter- and Germany
Supernational Cooperation, Federal
Statistical Office
Mr. M. D. Asthana Secretary, Department of Statistics India
Mr. Gary Jones Department of International Relations, Italy
Italian National Statistical Institute
(ISTAT)
Mr. Gabriele Quinti Director for Plan of Action, Gruppo, Italy
European Consortium for the Learning
Organization (CERFE)
Mr. Mahamadou Tangara Observatoire du Développement humain Mali
durable — Programme des Nations Unies
pour le développement (DHD-PNUD)
Ms. Maria Lourdes Lagarde Assistant Director, Agriculture Staff, Philippines
National Economic and Development
Authority (NEDA), and Assistant Head
Coordinating Secretariat, Philippine
Council for Sustainable Development
Mr. Paul Cheung Chief, Statistician Department of Singapore
Statistics, Ministry of Trade and Industry
Mr. Ilija Batljan First Secretary, Ministry of Health and Sweden
Social Affairs
Mr. E. S. K. Muwanga-Zake Deputy Director, Trade and External Debt Uganda
Department
Mr. Tony Williams Chief Statistician, Department for United Kingdom of Great
International Development Britain and Northern Ireland
Professor Marc L. Miringoff Fordham Institute for Innovation in Social United States of America
Policy, Fordham Graduate Center
Mr. D. W. M. Mzumara Team Leader, Statistical Development, Economic Commission for
Development Information Services Africa
Division
Mr. Andrew Flatt Director, Statistics Division Economic and Social
Commission for Asia and the
Pacific
Mr. Labeeb Abdunnur Chief, Statistics Division Economic and Social
Commission for Western Asia
Mr. Ladislav Kabat Director, Statistics Division Food and Agriculture
Organization of the United
Nations
Mr. Jean-Etienne Chapron Statistics Department International Monetary Fund
Mr. Brian Hammond Head, Reporting Systems Division, Organisation for Economic
Development Cooperation Directorate Cooperation and Development
Mr. Eric Swanson Leader, World Development Indicators, World Bank
Senior Economist Development Data
Group

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Name Title Country/organization

Mr. Terry McKinley Human Development Economist United Nations Development

Programme
Ms. Sakiko Fukuda-Parr Director, Human Development Report United Nations Development
Programme
Ms. Denise Lievesley Director, UNESCO Institute for Statistics United Nations Educational,
Scientific and Cultural
Organization
Mr. Richard Leete Manager, Data System including Indicator United Nations Population
Theme Group, Technical and Policy Fund
Division
Mr Gareth Jones Chief, Information and Data Management United Nations Children’s
Fund
Staff of the United Nations Statistics Division and other divisions of the Department of Economic and Social
Affairs also participated.

25
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Annex III
Selection and dissemination of indicators
There have been several attempts at defining an indicator, but there is as yet no single,
widely applied definition. The following is a selection of the different attempts at defining
indicators:
“Indicators reflect or represent complex concepts or conditions. They are statistics or
other forms of evidence which attempt to make sense of uncertainty or the unknown by
extracting simple ideas out of complex ones” (McCracken and Scott, 1998; from Innes, 1990:
291). Social indicators have been described as “statistical series, and all forms of evidence ...
that enable us to assess where we stand and where we are going with respect to values and
goals, and to evaluate specific programs and determine their impact” (Bauer, 1966, quoted
by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), 1996). They are “tools to clarify
and define more precisely the objectives and impact ... are verifiable measures of changes
or results ... are designed to provide a standard against which to gauge, estimate, or
demonstrate the progress ... against stated targets, towards delivering ... inputs, producing ...
outputs and achieving ... objectives” (United Nations, 1989; p. 18). They provide a close look
at the results of initiatives and actions (CIDA, 1996: p. 5).
From the above definitions, a number of common elements can be identified, which help
to determine what an indicator is: a statistic, a fact (quantitative) or encompassing forms of
evidence, perception (qualitative); defined for some purpose, such as to assess, evaluate,
measure, convey a message; reflect some underlying goal, values, conditions, message and
so on.

Types and selection of indicators

There are several ways in which indicators have been categorized. They are
distinguished as quantitative or qualitative; direct or indirect; simple or composite; input,
process or performance, or outcome indicators; driving force, state or response indicators
and so forth.
Since indicators have a more specific purpose than other forms of statistical and
qualitative information, there is a need to be selective about which information is to be
presented. According to CIDA (1996), for an indicator to be chosen, it should meet the tests
of “reliability” and “validity” (p. 10). The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organization (UNESCO) suggests that good indicators should be: policy-relevant; user-
friendly, derived from a framework, technically sound (that is to say, valid, reliable and
comparable); and feasible in terms of measurement at reasonable cost (1997, p. 3). The World
Health Organization (WHO) states that the selection of an indicator should assure its relevance
in terms of validity, objectivity, specificity, and sensitivity (1996, p. viii).
The identification and selection of each indicator are critical steps in its production,
and are generally guided by certain principles, that is to say, the indicator should be:
• Policy-relevant: capable of providing clear and unambiguous responses to key policy
issues and concerns;
• Specific: have the capacity to measure only the phenomena for which it has been
selected, and be definite in terms of magnitude and time;

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• Valid: able to actually measure what it has been chosen to measure, that is to say, close
to the reality being measured;
• Reliable: accurate and consistent, able to express the same message or yield the same
conclusions if the measurement is carried out with different tools, by different people,
in similar circumstances;
• Sensitive: have the capacity to measure changes in the phenomena that it is intended
to measure;
• Measurable: based on available data or feasible with respect to obtaining the required
data;
• User-friendly: comprehensible, timely (should be few in number);
• Cost-effective: the results should be worth the time and money it costs to implement
them.
An appropriate use of data for the development of a full range of indicators also requires
a clear dissemination policy which carefully considers issues such as timeliness, frequency
of compilation and provision of information on the quality of an indicator. These issues are
crucial in building the indispensable confidence of users of indicators, and may be further
described as follows:
(a) The frequency of compilation of an indicator is determined by (i) the periodicity
of the collection of the data source; (ii) the time needed to process the information; and (iii)
the estimated rate at which the phenomenon changes;
(b) The time lag between collection and dissemination should be relatively short,
particularly if the phenomenon to be observed changes very quickly; otherwise the indicator
may lose its relevance for monitoring;
(c) Availability of “metadata”, that is to say, notes on methodology and sources, are
necessary for users, in particular policy makers, to assess the quality and relevance of
indicators.

References
Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) (1996). Guide to Gender-Sensitive
Indicators. Canada.
McCracken, Mike, and Katherine Scott (1998). “Social and economic indicators: underlying
assumptions, purposes and values”. Theme II Background Paper for the Symposium on
Gender Equality Indicators: Public Concern and Public Policies, Ottawa, Canada, 26
and 27 March 1998.
United Nations (1989). Handbook on Social Indicators. Studies in Methods, No. 49. Sales
No. E.89.XVII.6.
United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (1997). Gender-Sensitive
Education Statistics and Indicators: A Practical Guide. Training material for workshops
on education statistics and indicators. BPE-97/WS/3.
World Health Organization, (1996). Catalogue of Health Indicators: A selection of
Important Health Indicators Recommended by WHO Programmes.
WHO/HST/SCI/96.8.

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Annex IV
Number of international data-collection activities
by organization
Number of requests
International agency/organization/department sent to countries

Worldwide coverage
United Nations Statistics Division 12
United Nations Conference on Trade and Development 7
International Labour Organization 4
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations 42
United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization 12
International Civil Aviation Organization 13
World Health Organization 2
International Monetary Fund 4
International Telecommunication Union 3
World Intellectual Property Organization 11
World Tourism Organization 2
World Trade Organization 5
Total 117
Regional or limited coverage
Economic Commission for Europe 63
Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific 5
Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean 4
Economic Commission for Africa 3
Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia 3
Commonwealth of Independent States 1
Statistical Office of the European Communities 82
Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development 34
Total 195

Source: United Nations Statistics Division, “Inventory of Statistical Data-collection Activities”,

1995.

28
 Annex V
Selected indicator activities linked to the follow-up of specific conferencesa
Number of
Conference Organization Activities indicators Medium of data dissemination More information

Health for All World Health To assist countries in monitoring and evaluating the 74 Report of the World WHO Statistical Information System
Organization (WHO) implementation of strategies for Health for All Health Situation WHOSIS<www.who.ch/
(HFA), a Common Framework is provided as a tool whosis/>
to ensure coverage of health and health-related areas
such as socio-economic and development trends,
development of health systems, health care, health
resources, patterns and trend in health status,
environmental factors and other relevant aspects of
health systems development and management. A
minimum set of indicators to guide the monitoring is
incorporated in the Framework and Member States
committed themselves to report these data to WHO.
Seventy-four indicators have been selected for the
third evaluation of the HFA strategy, of which 12
are specific to the HFA exercise, whereas the others
are taken from other agencies.

The concepts and the presentation of these

indicators are in the process of being reviewed.
World Summit for United Nations Children’s In 1992, the International Conference on Assistance 43 The State of the World’s Monitoring Progress Towards the Goals
Children Fund (UNICEF) to African Children adopted a set of 13 Mid-Decade Children (last issue of the World Summit for Children (New
Goals as the moral minimum that all countries 1999) York, UNICEF, 1995)
needed to achieve by the end of 1995 as stepping
stones to the goals for the year 2000. The mid- The Progress of Nations Evaluation of Multiple-Indicator Cluster
decade assessment in 1994 used 29 indicators and (last issue, 1998) Surveys, UNICEF
the end-decade will use 43. Furthermore, in 1994
UNICEF, with other partners, developed a Report of the Secretary-
household survey programme to assist countries in General on the progress
collecting relevant data for assessing progress on the at mid-decade on
mid-decade goals (see also Multiple-Indicator implementation of
Cluster Surveys in annex X). General Assembly
resolution 45/217 on the
World Summit for
Children (A/51/256), of
26 July 1996

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30
Number of
Conference Organization Activities indicators Medium of data dissemination More information

International United Nations The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) has 108 Indicators for Population and
E/1999/11

Conference on Population Fund published a report proposing an indicator Reproductive Health Programmes,
Population and (UNFPA) Department of framework for use in tracking progress of (New York, UNFPA, 1998)
Development Economic and Social population and reproductive health programmes,
Affairs/ Population subprogrammes and component projects. The 108
Division indicators are organized according to three thematic
areas of population and development, reproductive
health, including family planning and sexual health
and advocacy/information, education and
communication. The menu of indicators given
includes a small number of outcome indicators for
monitoring the goals of the Programme of Action of
the International Conference on Population and
Development as well as a large selection of process
and management indicators for use in programmes
designed to implement the International Conference
on Population and Development agenda. The report
also includes a comprehensive account of the data-
collection implications for compiling the various
indicators.

Following the International Conference on

Population and Development, the revitalized and
enlarged Commission on Population and
Development requested the Department of World Population Report of the Secretary-General on the
Economic and Social Affairs to coordinate Monitoring (last issue review and appraisal of the progress
production of the annual World Population 1999) made in achieving the goals and
Monitoring report, as a major activity for objectives of the Programme of Action
monitoring progress in the implementation of the of the International Conference on
Programme of Action of the International Population and Development
Conference on Population and Development. The (E/CN.9/1999/PC/2).
report includes indicators for which quantitative
goals were identified in the Programme of Action,
and related statistical and policy information.
 Number of
Conference Organization Activities indicators Medium of data dissemination More information

United Nations United Nations Centre for Following the United Nations Conference on Human 50 Global database by http://www.UrbanObservatory.org
Conference on Human Settlements Settlements (Habitat II), the United Nations Centre United Nations Centre
Human Settlements (Habitat) for Human Settlements (Habitat) established a for Human Settlements
(Habitat II) Global Urban Observatory (GUO) to permit (Habitat)
comparative international evaluation of progress in
meeting the aims of the Habitat Agenda (Report of The State of the World’s
the United Nations Conference on Human Cities
Settlements (Habitat II), Istanbul, 3–14 June 1996
(United Nations publication, Sales No. E.97.IV.6),
chap. I, resolution 1, annex II), and to provide
information on human settlements trends and
conditions worldwide. To encourage self-
monitoring of progress by Governments, local
authorities and their partners, GUO is building a
global urban knowledge infrastructure based on
networks of local, national and regional urban
observatories. The Urban Indicators Programme,
which forms part of GUO, distributes guidelines,
spreadsheets and other tools to urban observatories
focusing, first, on approximately 50 key urban
indicators, which were endorsed by the Preparatory
Committee for the United Nations Conference on
Human Settlements (Habitat II). Data for these key
indicators and for additional contextual indicators
are updated locally and compiled nationally for
urban policy and programme purposes. Local and
national data sets are transmitted voluntarily to the
United Nations Centre for Human Settlements
(Habitat), which maintains an indicators database
for regional and global analyses.
Education for All United Nations An International Consultative Forum on Education 18 unescostat.unesco.org Education for All By The Year 2000
Educational, Scientific for All, comprising the United Nations Development Assessment, Technical Guidelines,
and Cultural Organization Programme (UNDP), UNESCO, UNFPA, UNICEF UNESCO
(UNESCO) and the World Bank, developed guidelines for
countries undertaking an assessment of Education CD-ROM (in process)
for All (EFA) by the year 2000, based on a set of 18
core indicators. Thirty-eight indicators have been
introduced in the Web site.
Fourth World Department of Economic The Committee on the Elimination of Women in political http://www.un.org/womenwatch/statists/
Conference on and Social Discrimination against Women, which reviews on a decision-making, 1997,
Women Affairs/Division for the regular basis reports prepared by Governments, on-line
Advancement of Women recommended to Governments to include statistical
data in reference to all articles of the Convention on Directory of national
the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination machineries for the
against Women. For the 5-year review in 2000, the advancement of women,
Division for the Advancement of Women has 1998, on-line
prepared a special questionnaire on implementation
which includes for reference an annex with
development indicators, which are recommended for
analysis, provided the data are broken down by sex
and age to show any gaps between women and men.
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31
32
Number of
Conference Organization Activities indicators Medium of data dissemination More information

Department of Economic The third issue of The World’s Women (2000) is 80 Women’s Indicators and http://www.un.org/Depts/unsd/gender/in
E/1999/11

and Social Affairs/United being produced as a background document for the (approx- Statistics Database tro.htm
Nations Statistics special session of the General Assembly entitled imately) (Wistat)
Division “Women 2000: gender equality, development and
peace for the twenty-first century”.This is a Handbook for
collaborative effort of various United Nations Producing National
agencies/departments and selected countries. Statistical Reports on
Women and Men (United
Nations publication,
Sales
No. E.97.XVII.10 and
Corr.1) 1997
 Number of
Conference Organization Activities indicators Medium of data dissemination More information

United Nations Department of Economic The Commission on Sustainable Development, 134 Indicators of http://www.un.org/esa/
Conference on and Social which was established to follow up the United Sustainable sustdev/isd.htm
Environment and Affairs/Division for Nations Conference on Environment and Development:
Development Sustainable Development Development in Rio, approved a work programme Framework and
indicators of sustainable development at its third Methodologies (United
session in 1995. The objective of the work Nations publication,
programme is to make indicators of sustainable Sales No. E.96.II.A.16),
development available to decision makers at the 1996
national level by the year 2000. The implementation
of the work programme resulted in a working list of
134 indicators of sustainable development, a
framework for their organization and methodology
sheets for each of the indicators. Twenty-two
countries from all geographical regions of the world
have volunteered to test the indicators over a three-
year period in relation to their own national
priorities and interests. The revised set of indicators
and related methodologies will be presented to the
Commission in 2001.

a
In addition to the selection of indicator activities presented here, there are other initiatives such as the Statistical Project as a follow-up to the World Summit on
Social Development, Danmarks Statistik, as well as sectoral initiatives, for example, the International Labour Organization (ILO) World Employment Report
1998–99: Employability in the Global Economy: How Training Matters (Geneva, International Labour Office, 1998), prepared as a follow-up to the Summit.

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Annex VI
Cross-conference indicator initiatives
Programme name Responsible institution/body Purpose Conferences Number of indicators

Minimum National Statistical Commission To monitor the major areas of concern International Conference on 15 a
Social Data Set addressed by the recent major United Nations Population and Development,
(MNSDS) conferences. The Statistical Commission also World Summit for Social
invited users to build on MNSDS to meet Development, Fourth World
national needs and circumstances, and to Conference on Women, and
provide feedback on the implementation and United Nations Conference on
use of the MNSDS. b Human Settlements (Habitat II)
Basic Social Services for Administrative To bring to the attention of a broader International Conference on 13 c
All Committee on audience the goals of recent United Nations Population and Development,
Coordination (ACC), conferences in areas relating to basic social World Summit for Social
Task Force on Basic services, and to give a concise statistical Development, Fourth World
Social Services for All overview of the range of current national Conference on Women, and
situations and of the progress that will be United Nations Conference on
needed to achieve the goals Human Settlements (Habitat II)
United Nations United Nations inter- To review and analyse the national See list in annex I 40 (conference
Development Assistance agency working group development situation and identify key issues indicators)
Framework — common on indicators, as a basis for advocacy and policy dialogue. d
country assessment representatives from all To highlight potential major issues in a 10 (contextual
(UNDAF–CCA) the member agencies of country by focusing attention on and indicators)
the United Nations measuring progress in specific areas
Development Group
International Organisation for To monitor progress towards a selection of World Conference on 21 e
development goals Economic Cooperation conference goals as presented in Shaping the Education for All, United
and Development 21st Century: The Contribution of Nations Conference on 10 (contextual
(OECD), United Development Cooperation and adjust Environment and Development, indicators)
Nations, World Bank development strategies as required. To give an International Conference on
integrated world view of human well-being in Population and Development,
its economic, social and environmental World Summit for Social
aspects Development, Fourth World
Conference on Women

a
See report of the Expert Group on the Statistical Implications of Recent Major United Nations Conferences (E/CN.3/AC.1/1996/R.4,
annex).
b
Official Records of the Economic and Social Council, 1997, Supplement No. 4 (E/1997/24), para. 67 (b).
c
Under the auspices of the Task Force, the Department of Economic and Social Affairs prepared the wall chart on Basic Social
Services for All, 1997 (ST/ESA/SER.A/160); see also United Nations, “Charting the Progress of Populations” (ESA/P/WP.149),
1998.
d
United Nations Development Group, “Guidelines, Common Country Assessment”, final draft, 31 March 1999, annex A, boxes A
(Conference indicators) and C (Contextual indicators). The framework also contains some qualitative indicators on governance and
civil and political rights.
e
OECD, a Working Set of Indicators of Development Progress: http://www.oecd.org/dac/Indicators/htm/list.htm

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Annex VII
Union of core indicator sets (Minimum National Social Data
Set (MNSDS), Organisation for Economic Cooperation and
Development (OECD)-United Nations-World Bank, United
Nations Development Assistance Framework — common
country assessment (UNDAF–CCA),a basic social services for
all (BSSA))
OECD-United
Nations-World Number of
Topics/indicators MNSDS Bank UNDAF/CCA BSSA countries b

1. Population and population

growth
Estimated population size by age
and sex c x
Total population d x x x 145
Total fertility rate x x 190
2. Health and mortality
Life expectancy at birth x x x x 144
Under-five mortality rate x x x x 163
Infant mortality rate x x x x 190
Proportion of the population with
access to primary health care
services x x 79
Human immunodeficiency virus
(HIV) adult prevalence rate x 145
HIV prevalence in pregnant
women aged 15–24 e x x 124
3. Reproductive health
Maternal mortality rate (per
100,000 live births) x x x x 140
Contraceptive prevalence rate x x x x 159
Percentage of births attended by
appropriately trained
health/skilled personnel x x 74
4. Food security and nutrition
Percentage of household income
spent on food x
Percentage of population below
minimum level of dietary energy
consumption x
Proportion/prevalence of
underweight children f x x x 86

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OECD-United
Nations-World Number of
Topics/indicators MNSDS Bank UNDAF/CCA BSSA countries b

5. Education
Adult literacy rate x x x 164
Net primary enrolment ratio x x 102
Percentage reaching grade
5/completion of grade 4 x x 101
Average number of years of
schooling completed g x
Literacy rate of persons aged
15–24 h x x 77
6. Gender equality and women’s
empowerment
Percentage of seats held by
women in national government,
including parliament x
Percentage of paid employees
who are women x 54
Ratio of girls to boys in primary
and secondary education
combined i x x x 126
7. Child’s health welfare
Percentage of children one year
of age immunized against measles x 145
Percentage of children aged
10–14 who are employed x 147
8. Employment
Unemployment rate x x
Informal sector employment as
percentage of total employment x
j
Employment-population ratio x x
9. Income and poverty
Household income per capita
(level and distribution) x
Poverty headcount ratio
(percentage of population below
national poverty line) x 56
Poverty headcount ratio
(percentage below $1 a day) x x 59
Poverty gap ratio x x 51
Monetary value of the minimum
food basket k x
Poorest fifth’s share of national
consumption x x 74
10. Housing and basic household
amenities and facilities
Percentage of population with
access to adequate sanitation x x x 78
Percentage of population with
access to safe drinking water x x x x 115
Number of persons per room,
excluding bathroom l x x x
11. Environment
Arable land per capita x 146

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OECD-United
Nations-World Number of
Topics/indicators MNSDS Bank UNDAF/CCA BSSA countries b

Percentage change in forest land

area in the last 10 years x 143
Percentage of the population that
relies on traditional fuels for
energy use x
Countries with national
sustainable development
strategies x 171
Intensity of freshwater use x 133
Biodiversity: land area protected x x 135
Energy efficiency: gross domestic
product (GDP) per unit of energy
use x x 136
Carbon dioxide emissions (per
capita) x x 176
12. Drug control and crime
prevention
Area under cultivation of coca,
opium poppy and cannabis x
Number of crimes per 100,000
inhabitants x
Prevalence of drug abuse x
Seizures of illicit drugs x
13. Economics
Total gross national product
(GNP) x
GNP or gross domestic product
(GDP) per capita m x x x 141
External debt (US$) as
percentage of GNP x x 105
Decadal growth rate of GNP per
capita (US$) x
Gross domestic savings as
percentage of GDP x 125
Investment as percentage of GDP x 123
Trade as percentage of GDP n x x
Aid as percentage of GNP x 112
Share of foreign direct investment
(FDI) in GDP x
Percentage of public expenditures
on social services x

Note: Several of the indicators in this presentation are specified by sex in the different sets. However,
classification by sex should be applied to all indicators, where feasible.
a
United Nations Development Group, “Guidelines: Common Country Assessment”, final draft, 31
March 1999, annex A, boxes A (Conference indicators) and C (Contextual indicators). The
framework also contains some qualitative indicators on governance and civil and political rights.
b
Number of countries on the basis of indicators presented either in the UNDP Human
Development Report, 1998 (New York, Oxford University Press, 1998) or in the 1997 World
Development Indicators (World Bank). The source of the number of countries for the Adult
Literacy Rate is United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
c
MNSDS: where appropriate and feasible, by ethnic group.

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d
UNDAF: by age, to identify target groups.
e
OECD: use Adult rate if data not available; UNDAF: HIV prevalence in pregnant women under
age 25 who receive antenatal care in capital cities/major urban areas.
f
UNDAF: children under age 5 who are underweight, stunted and wasted.
g
MNSDS: by urban/rural and, where possible, by income class.
h
OECD: in addition, ratio of literate females to males.
i
UNDAF: only secondary education.
j
MNSDS: where appropriate, by formal and informal sector.
k
MNSDS: food needed for minimum nutritional requirement.
l
UNDAF: if data are not available, floor area per person.
m
UNDAF: US dollars and purchasing power parities (PPPs).
n
UNDAF: share of exports in GDP.

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Annex VIII
Availability and recency of data at the international level for
selected indicators in the Minimum National Social Data Set
(MNSDS) a
Number of countries

Availability and
Indicator recency of data Total Africa America Asia Europe Oceania

Total 195 54 39 48 42 12
Total population With data 186 51 37 45 41 12
1995 or later 139 27 31 35 38 8
1990–1994 37 18 5 9 3 2
1985–1989 10 6 1 1 0 2
No recent data 9 3 2 3 1 0
Population by sex
and age With data 158 36 35 38 40 9
1995 or later 72 10 17 18 26 1
1990–1994 62 19 14 13 13 3
1985–1989 24 7 4 7 1 5
No recent data 37 18 4 10 2 3
Life expectancy
at birth With data 104 10 24 28 37 5
1995 or later 37 3 9 6 19 0
1990–1994 45 3 10 13 15 4
1985–1989 22 4 5 9 3 1
No recent data 91 44 15 20 5 7
Infant mortality
rate With data 93 6 21 23 38 5
1995 or later 57 1 10 9 34 3
1990–1994 27 3 9 10 4 1
1985–1989 9 2 2 4 0 1
No recent data 102 48 18 25 4 7
Child mortality
rate With data 96 8 25 22 36 5
1995 or later 31 2 2 6 20 1
1990–1994 52 3 19 12 16 2
1985–1989 13 3 4 4 0 2
No recent data 99 46 14 26 6 7
Maternal
mortality ratio With data 78 4 22 15 35 2
1995 or later 27 0 4 5 18 0
1990–1994 42 2 14 8 16 2
1985–1989 9 2 4 2 1 0
No recent data 117 50 17 33 7 10
Contraceptive
prevalence,
women in union With data 128 40 29 36 17 6
1995 or later 24 13 6 4 1 0
1990–1994 75 21 13 26 13 2

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Number of countries

Availability and
Indicator recency of data Total Africa America Asia Europe Oceania

1985–1989 29 6 10 6 3 4
No recent data 67 14 10 12 25 6
Average number
of persons per
room With data 37 3 11 8 13 2
1990–1994 16 2 6 1 6 1
1980–1989 21 1 5 7 7 1
No recent data 158 51 28 40 29 10
Percentage with
access to safe
water With data 155 52 34 42 18 9
1994–1996 119 39 33 32 9 6
1986–1993 36 13 1 10 9 3
No recent data 40 2 5 6 24 3
Percentage with
access to
sanitation With data 167 51 32 42 32 10
1994–1996 111 34 30 33 9 5
1986–1993 56 17 2 9 23 5
No recent data 28 3 7 6 10 2
Per capita gross
domestic product
(GDP) With data 172 50 39 39 36 8
1995 or later 64 8 14 21 20 1
1990–1994 94 33 22 17 16 6
1985–1989 14 9 3 1 0 1
No recent data 23 4 0 9 6 4
Unemployment
rate With data 87 5 26 17 36 3
1995 or later 60 1 16 12 28 3
1990–1994 27 4 10 5 8 0
No recent data 108 49 13 31 6 9
Employment-
population ratio,
ages 15–64 With data 66 3 26 12 23 2
1995 or later 55 2 19 11 22 1
1990–1994 9 0 6 1 1 1
1985–1989 2 1 1 0 0 0
No recent data 129 51 13 36 19 10

a
The present table is taken from the report of the Secretary-General on the harmonization and
rationalization of development indicators in the United Nations system (E/CN.3/1999/14). It was
based mainly on published international sources (specifically, Compendium of Human
Settlements Statistics 1995 (United Nations publication, Sales No. E.95.XVII.11), Demographic
Yearbook 1996 (United Nations publication, Sales No. E/F.98.XIII.1), Population and Vital
Statistics Report: Data Available as of 1 April 1998, World Population Monitoring 1998 and
Yearbook of Labour Statistics 1997); and files provided by the International Labour Office,
World Health Organization and the Economic Statistics Branch of the United Nations Statistics
Division from their respective databases. Given that one of the primary goals for the compilation
was to identify gaps and areas requiring greater attention by national and international statistical

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systems, smoothed, model-based or other estimated data and projections prepared by

international organizations were purposely excluded.

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Annex IX
Illustrative examples of inconsistencies among indicators in
international publications
Population with access to safe water

Source A a Source B b

Country 1990–1996 1995

Chile 95 not available

China 67 90
Mali 66 36
Mozambique 63 32
Nepal 63 48
Senegal 63 50
Trinidad and Tobago 97 82
Uganda 56 34

a
United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), The State of the World’s Children, 1998 (New York,
Oxford University Press, 1998).
b
World Health Organization (WHO), The World Health Report, 1996: Fighting Disease,
Fostering Development (Geneva, WHO, 1996); WHO expanded programme of immunization
information system; WHO and others, Water Supply and Sanitation Sector Monitoring Report
1996.

Total population, 1996

(Millions)

Source A a Source B b

Country Mid-year

Bangladesh 127 120.073

Egypt 59 63.271
Eritrea 4 3.280
Iran (Islamic Republic of) 63 69.975
Pakistan 134 139.973
Philippines 72 69.282
Rwanda 7 5.397
South Africa 38 42.393

a
World Bank, 1998 World Development Indicators.
b
World Population Monitoring, 1997: International Migration and Development (United
Nations publication, Sales No. E.98.XIII.4).

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Percentage of population below national poverty line

Source A a Source B b

c d c d
Country U R U R

1990 1990s
Brazil 13.1 32.6 43 63
1991 1990s
Colombia 7.8 29.0 38 68
1992 1990s
India 33.7 43.5 4 48
1992 1990s
Ghana 26.7 34.3 18 25

a
World Bank, 1998 World Development Indicators.
b
International Labour Organization (ILO), World Employment Report 1998–99: Employability in
the Global Economy — How Training Matters (Geneva, International Labour Office, 1998).
c
U: urban.
d
R: rural.

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Annex X
Description of international data initiatives
Programme Description

Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) The DHS began in 1984 and is funded primarily by the United States
Agency for International Development (USAID). The project is to
assist government and private agencies in developing countries in
conducting national surveys on population and maternal child health.
The main objectives of the programme are to (a) promote widespread
dissemination and utilization of DHS data among policy makers, (b)
expand the international population and health database, (c) advance
survey methodology and (d) develop in participating countries the
skills and resources necessary to conduct high-quality demographic
and health surveys. The surveys are carried out in a relatively
standardized manner.a In all, about 80 surveys have been conducted in
53 developing countries from Africa, Asia and Latin America/
Caribbean.
Living Standard Measurement Survey The LSMS was designed by the World Bank in 1980 to explore ways
(LSMS) of improving the type and quality of household data collected by
government statistical offices in developing countries. The objectives
were to (a) develop new methods for monitoring progress in raising
levels of living, (b) identify the consequences for households of current
and proposed government policies and (c) improve communications
between survey statisticians, analysts and policy makers. The studies
are designed to produce a comprehensive monetary measure of welfare
and its distribution and other aspects, and describe patterns of access
to and use of social services. By 1997, LSMS-type surveys had been
conducted in about 24 countries. With the exception of the first two
surveys which were funded from the World Bank’s Research
Committee, the other surveys competed for funds with other project
activities funded by the World Bank and other development agencies.b
Multiple-Indicator Cluster Survey The MICS was designed in 1994 with the collaboration of the World
(MICS) Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations Population Fund
(UNFPA), the United Nations Statistics Division and the United States
Centers for Disease Control. The concepts, methods and model
questionnaire were provided as part of the package on Monitoring
Progress towards the Goals of the World Summit for Children. The
surveys were proposed when it was determined that either many of the
indicators for assessing progress were without data or that the data
were from 1990 or earlier.c These surveys were carried out in 1995 and
1996 by more than 60 countries worldwide.
National Household Survey Capability NHSCP was funded by the United Nations Development Programme
Programme (NHSCP) (UNDP), UNFPA, UNICEF and the World Bank, and implemented by
the United Nations Statistics Division. It began in the 1980s and ended
mid-1990s, and was designed to build the capacity of countries to
conduct surveys on a regular basis. The programme assisted some
participating countries in building the infrastructure for conducting
surveys. Many of these national survey programmes established
through the project are still operational.

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Programme Description

General Data Dissemination System The GDDS (approved in December 1997) is part of a wider
(GDDS) programme undertaken by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to
guide members in the dissemination to the public of their economic and
financial data. In addition to the GDDS, which applies to all Fund
members, the Fund has also elaborated special standards (Special Data
Dissemination Standard (SDDS)).
The General System’s purposes are (a) to encourage member countries
to improve data quality; (b) to provide a framework for evaluating
needs for data improvement and setting priorities in this respect; and
(c) to guide member countries in the dissemination to the public of
comprehensive, timely, accessible and reliable economic, financial and
socio-demographic statistics.
Member countries may implement the General System by (a)
committing to using the GDDS as a framework for statistical
development; (b) designating a country coordinator; and (c) preparing
metadata that consist of descriptions of (i) current practices, and (ii)
plans for short- and long-term improvements in these practices. These
metadata will be disseminated by the Fund through an electronic
bulletin board on the Internet.d
International Comparison Programme The ICP is a programme to establish systematic international
(ICP) comparisons based on purchasing power parities. It began its activities
in 1968 with project staff in the United Nations Statistics Division and
in the University of Pennsylvania. Over the years, an increasing
number of countries participated in the various phases of the
programme (phase I, 1970: 10 countries; phase V, 1985: 64 countries)
with detailed price data collection exercises. As of phase IV (1980),
the programme was regionalized, that is to say, countries participated
through regions or country groups. Financial support was given by
various multilateral and regional funding agencies. The programme
was reviewed during the 1999 session of the Statistical Commission.e
a
Macro International, Inc., An Analysis of Sample Design and Sampling Errors of the Demographic and Health Surveys,
Demographic and Health Surveys Analytical Reports, No. 3, May 1997.
b
M. Grosh and P. Glewwe, A Guide to Living Standards Surveys and Their Data Sets, LSMS Working Paper, No. 20 (World Bank,
1995); see also <www.worldbank.org/LSMS/guide/history.html>
c
United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), Monitoring Progress towards the Goals of the World Summit for Children: A Practical
Handbook for Multiple-Indicator Surveys (1995).
d
See also <http:\\dsbb.imf.org>
e
See the report of the consultant on the evaluation of the International Comparison Programme (E/CN.3/1999/8, annex); see also
Handbook of the International Comparison Programme Studies in Methods, No. 62 (United Nations publication, Sales No.
E.92.XVII.12).

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