REPORT ON ACTIVITIES RELATED TO THE KNOWLEDGE TRANSFER NETWORK *

Distr. LIMITED LC/L.2934(CE.8/4) 22 September 2008 ENGLISH ORIGINAL: SPANISH Eighth meeting the Executive Committee of the Statistical Conference of the Americas of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean Santo Domingo, 22-24 October 2008 REPORT ON ACTIVITIES RELATED TO THE KNOWLEDGE TRANSFER NETWORK * Working Group on Human Resource Education and Training of the Statistical Conference of the Americas of ECLAC * Document prepared by the Council of the Knowledge Transfer Network (KTN) coordinated by Spain. 2008-556

1 A. INTRODUCTION The Working Group on Human Resource Education and Training was created at the third meeting of the Statistical Conference of the Americas of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, held in June 2005, for the purpose of carrying out a specific project to enhance the education and training of human resources in the national statistics systems of the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean. The Group s final product consisted of a widely accepted, sustainable and internationalscale programme to meet the real training needs of statistics services in the region. Since its creation, the Group has analysed the training needs and the resources available for training in the region and has reached the following conclusions: (i) many seminars, but few courses are given; (ii) there is little communication among countries to ensure adequate use of the human, economic and infrastructure resources available; (iii) it is difficult to measure the impact of educational and training activities on the day-to-day work of national statistics institutes and offices because, on the whole, evaluation and follow-up procedures have not been established, and (iv) certification procedures are lacking. In July 2007, the proposal to create the Knowledge Transfer Network (KTN) for training in official statistics in Latin America and the Caribbean was approved at the fourth meeting of the Statistical Conference of the Americas of ECLAC. The KTN was conceived as a regional public good whose mission is to boost the capacity of countries to generate, analyse and diffuse official statistics by encouraging the transfer of the best knowledge available. The Network s activities and its training programme in particular adhere to the guidelines set out in the Conference s Strategic Plan 2005-2015, specifically with the aims of goal 2, namely: to promote the training of staff in producing high-quality statistical information, managing national statistical systems and carrying out research into statistical methodology. B. ACTIVITIES CARRIED OUT SINCE THE FOURTH MEETING OF THE STATISTICAL CONFERENCE OF THE AMERICAS OF ECLAC Since the creation of the KTN at the fourth meeting of the Statistical Conference of the Americas of ECLAC, the following fundamental tasks have been performed: The KTN training programme for 2008-2009 was presented and approved at the seventh meeting of the Executive Committee of the Conference held at the end of November 2007. At this meeting, the Executive Committee urged international organizations and member countries of the Conference to contribute to the funding of the KTN as a regional public good, instructed the working groups to coordinate their training activities with the Network and requested the Commission to give the Network a space on the website of the Statistical Conference of the Americas of ECLAC. The following countries were designated, at the fourth meeting of the Statistical Conference of the Americas of ECLAC, as members of the Council responsible for the administration of the KTN in 2008-2009: Colombia, Cuba, Jamaica and Mexico, and Spain as its coordinator.

2 ECLAC has worked closely with the Secretariat of the Council on the creation of the webpage for the KTN, which can be accessed at http://www.eclac.cl/scaeclac/rtc.htm. The Secretariat of the Council produced a logo for the KTN, which was approved by the Council members. This logo consists of a mosaic of the main colours found in national flags around the world and portrays an iconic synthesis of information, in which intersecting lines represent the crossing paths of data transmission networks. With regard to the coordination of efforts, information has been compiled on the training activities being carried out in 2008-2009 by the other working groups of the Statistical Conference of the Americas, and by international organizations (International Monetary Fund, Centre for Latin American Monetary Studies, Partnership in Statistics for Development in the 21st Century (PARIS21)) and national statistics offices. Four activities from the 2008-2009 training programme have been completed: the first was a seminar-workshop on the institutional strengthening of national statistics offices, held on 28 January and 1 February 2008 at the headquarters of the National Statistics Office of the Dominican Republic; the second consisted of seminar on classification and registers, held from 24 to 28 March 2008 at the head offices of the National Institute of Statistics (INE) of Spain; the third activity was a seminar on industrial indicators and statistics, held from 7 to 11 April 2008 also at the head offices of INE of Spain; and the fourth was an online course on how to survey corporations and establishments, which ran from 25 March to 25 May 2008. Several activities had been piloted beforehand, including: a course on national accounting, organized by the International and Ibero-American Foundation of Public Administration and Policies (FIIAPP) in October 2007, with the collaboration of the National Administrative Department of Statistics (DANE) of Colombia and the National Institute of Statistics, Geography and Informatics (INEGI) of Mexico; a course on tourism statistics, organized by INEGI of Mexico in November 2007, in which instructors from the INE of Spain also participated; and a course on quality assessment and indicators, organized by DANE of Colombia in November 2007. In March 2008, INE of Spain, as the Secretariat of the KTN Council, sent a letter to the presidents and general directors of the statistics offices of the ECLAC member countries requesting their collaboration in the establishment of a pool of experts in official statistics who would be able to meet the countries requirements through the KTN. A form was designed for collecting the most relevant personal and professional data on the experts as well as information on their areas or expertise within the fields considered of particular priority for education and training according to the document approved at the fourth meeting of the Conference. This pool of experts will be tremendously useful for all the education and training activities that are to be carried out through the KTN. Contact will be made over the next few months with the countries that have already contributed data on experts with a view to setting up a mechanism whereby information on the experts included in the pool can be easily updated. The countries serving on the KTN Council have worked assiduously to obtain the support of international organizations because lack of financing could jeopardize the Network s future. The following agencies have been consulted, among others: the World Bank, the

3 Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), PARIS21, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and the Spanish International Cooperation Agency for Development (AECID). The goal is to: (i) obtain sufficient resources to provide the KTN with a basic coordination unit, staffed by at least two people, to run the Network and ensure its sustainability over time; (ii) obtain sufficient funds to finance the activities contemplated in the training programme that currently lack resources. A request for funding for the KTN was submitted to the World Bank at the end of April 2008. This request stressed the urgent need to fund: (i) the basic coordination unit and (ii) the implementation of the training programme, as some courses still do not have funding. The basic unit needs to be funded for a period of two years after which it should be self-financing. The request included a detailed budget estimate for both proposals. After the World Bank required that a specific institution be designated to administer the resources, it was agreed that INEGI of Mexico would lend its support in this task. The Council of the KTN maintains that the Network will not be able to carry out the activities planned for the near future properly until the basic coordination unit has been set up. In July 2008, upon the suggestion of the World Bank, adjustments were made to certain aspects of the original request and a revised proposal was resubmitted that same month. The Bank is expected to pronounce on the matter in September. Parallel to these efforts, contact was made with the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) with a view to obtaining funding for two courses included in the training programme: (i) one on the preparatory tasks for the 2010 census round, which is to be organized by the National Institute of Statistics and Censuses of Argentina (INDEC) and (ii) the other on gender indicators and statistics, which is to be organized by the Andean Centre for Higher Studies (CANDANE). The feasibility of integrating international donor agencies into the KTN if they so wish is currently under study. C. RESULTS AND PRODUCTS TO BE PRESENTED AT THE FIFTH MEETING OF THE STATISTICAL CONFERENCE OF THE AMERICAS OF ECLAC The following items will be presented at the fifth meeting of the Statistical Conference of the Americas of ECLAC, which is to be held in mid-2009: The webpage located on the ECLAC website at http://www.eclac.cl/ceacepal/rtc.htm which has been created and maintained by ECLAC and the Secretariat of the Council. This webpage provides information on the Network's functions, the training programme approved by the Executive Committee of the Statistical Conference of the Americas of ECLAC, the statistics courses organized by the International Monetary Fund, the Centre for Latin American Monetary Studies (CEMLA) and PARIS21, as well as the training activities contemplated by the National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies

4 (INSEE) of France and the working groups of the Statistical Conference of the Americas of ECLAC for statisticians from ECLAC countries. A report on the status of the activities undertaken by the KTN, paying special attention to the training programme activities carried out in 2008-2009, the status of the pool of experts, the start-up of the Network s basic coordination unit and the backing received from international organizations. The training programme for the next biennium, for approval. The basic coordination unit will be set up with support from the World Bank during the eighth meeting of the Executive Committee of the Statistical Conference of the Americas of ECLAC, which will be held in Santo Domingo at the end of October 2008. Given that the KTN Council s mandate has been extended by two years, the member countries and the Secretariat of the Council of the KTN must be appointed at the fifth meeting of the Statistical Conference of the Americas of ECLAC for a new two-year period. D. GENERAL GUIDELINES FOR THE GROUP FOR 2009-2011 The tasks that need to be completed in 2009-2011 include the following: The implementation of the new biennial training programme approved at the fifth meeting of the Statistical Conference of the Americas of ECLAC. This programme must reflect the role the KTN plays in coordinating the training activities carried out by the working groups of the Statistical Conference of the Americas of ECLAC, international organizations and national statistics offices, with a view to meeting training needs in the region and avoiding, as far as possible, the overlap of activities or isolated activities. The new Council and Secretariat of the KTN appointed at the fifth meeting of the Statistical Conference of the Americas of ECLAC must work with the basic unit to ensure the effective running and sustainability of the Network and on the coordination and full implementation of all the activities contemplated in the training programme in accordance with the directives issued by the Statistical Conference of the Americas of ECLAC and its Executive Committee. E. CONCLUSION The Knowledge Transfer Network is a highly important regional project that has a direct impact on the education and training of human resources in the areas and tasks deemed priorities by the Statistical Conference of the Americas of ECLAC. It is therefore essential that all the member countries of ECLAC and international organizations participate and collaborate in the intense work under way to keep the Network functioning. The coordination of these efforts will be more effective once the basic unit starts operating at the end of 2008.