Germany's International Cooperation and Statistics:
Policies and Practice
Gabriele Zeller
Desk Officer
Federal Ministry for Economic
Cooperation and Development of Germany
Mr. Chairman,
Ladies and gentlemen,
I am very glad indeed to be able to share some thoughts with you on an important issue of development cooperation between our two countries.
Before I move on to the topic of statistics, let me make a few general remarks: over the years, a good trust-based relationship and reliable partnership has developed between the People's Republic of China and the Federal Republic of Germany.
If we look back on the years of our cooperation so far, we see that Chinese-German development cooperation has proven time and again that it is able to quickly and efficiently respond to new challenges.
China continues to be a priority partner country for German development cooperation and, thus, one of our most important partners when it comes to resolving issues of global structural policy.
The joint efforts of China's and Germany's governments to reduce poverty are an expression of China's commitment to reform with a view to further expanding its potential for development. Our joint projects are quite ambitious in sector policy terms, and your country has begun to take them over as its own projects.
As the second largest bilateral donor, Germany is active in four priority sectors:
• Environmental policy, protection and sustainable use of natural resources
• Economic reform and development of the market system
• Drinking water, water management, sanitation/waste management
• Transport
Beyond these priority areas, activities have also been agreed in the health sector, including in the field of HIV/AIDS control.
In view of the relatively low quantitative proportion of all donors' development cooperation (0.2%* of China's Gross National Income), it is obvious that development cooperation can make but a small contribution.
China mainly has to rely on its own resources to achieve its major development goals 每 which are compatible with the relevant Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) 每, such as reducing absolute poverty. (I will later comment briefly on the MDGs.)
I would like to emphasize that China has already made major headway in this regard. There is no other country in the world that has managed to lift so many people out of absolute poverty in recent years as China.
The said priority areas have been incorporated into a country strategy drawn up jointly by China and Germany which takes account of the contributions made by other donor countries. The need for embedding the poverty reduction strategy in an international context was recognized when the Millennium Declaration was adopted in September 2000, if not before.
In September 2000, 147 Heads of State and Government 每 and 189 nations in total 每 adopted the Millennium Declaration, which outlines peace, security and development concerns including environment, human rights and governance. The Declaration mainstreams a set of interconnected and mutually reinforcing development goals into a global agenda. These goals, called the Millennium Development Goals, synthesize the goals and targets for monitoring human development. They are centered around eight major goals:
1. Eradicate poverty and hunger;
2. Achieve universal primary education
3. Promote gender equality and empower women;
4. Reduce child mortality;
5. Improve maternal health;
6. Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases;
7. Ensure environmental sustainability;
8. Develop a global partnership for development.
Quantitative targets have been set for most goals, which are to be achieved over a 25 year period 每 between 1990 and 2015. Appropriate indicators have been selected to monitor progress on each of the targets. A common list of 18 targets and 48 indicators corresponding to these goals has been prepared collaboratively by the UN, the World Bank, IMF, OECD and WTO to ensure a common assessment and understanding of the status of MDGs at global, regional and national levels.
In 2005, a comprehensive review will measure the progress made over the first third of the period between 2000 and 2015 (as you know, the average level of poverty worldwide is to be halved by that year) 每 possibly at a World Development Summit.
Why am I telling you all this?
每 because these commitments present the international community with enormous challenges.
每 because unlike in the past, this effort is not just about measuring the inputs from donor countries, but also about taking stock of the outputs on the recipient side, in other words, measuring the impact of the assistance provided. The latter constitutes a new quality of the statistical recording of our efforts as partners.
Here, too, the focus is not just on agreements reached at UN conferences such as the Financing for Development Conference in Monterrey in 2002 or the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg on the implementation of the MDGs. Irrespective of that, the recording of facts and the measuring of impacts of political decisions in every single country of the world is an important contribution towards optimizing political action. Precise, comprehensive statistics foster transparency and the improvement of decision-making, not least with a view to achieving Good Governance.
By the way, the first writing system that was invented for what could be termed statistical purposes, such as the recording of warehouse stocks, taxes, and transport movements, came from the Euphrates/Tigris region. The records were written on clay tablets so as to prevent falsification.
Thus, assistance for development in this sector, paralleled by a mutual exchange of experience, used to be important and continues to be important for good policies, growth, and prosperity.
In order to be able to better coordinate and control the projects of the German government 每 including our Federal Statistical Office 每 launched so far (both bilateral and multilateral projects), the German government has made available funding for a project for the improvement of statistical capacity building in selected countries, primarily developing countries.
The project is expected to demonstrate how German development cooperation can orient the development of statistical capacity in developing and transition countries more closely to MDG monitoring.
At the international level, the project includes the Paris 21 Initiative of the OECD (coordination body for the bilateral cooperation of all 22 donor countries), the World Bank's Trust Fund for Statistical Capacity Building (TFSCB) (for multilateral cooperation), and Eurostat, with all of whom the German government works together.
Our project benefits from the fact that Paris 21 and TFSCB are interested in closer cooperation and have presented a joint work proposal. According to current plans, the division of labor between them would be as follows:
• Paris 21 will be in charge of advisory services aimed at enabling developing countries to define for themselves the output they expect their national statistical reporting systems to produce.
• TFSCB would provide the requisite financial and technical assistance to support the capacity-building process.
The German government contributes financially to both initiatives.
As you can see, the trend for achieving effective assistance is moving more and more towards increased coherence between international initiatives, and Germany has made a conscious choice to be part of that trend.
However, these measures can only be successful if the countries themselves become active and try to improve their evaluation and monitoring systems. In your country, our experience has been that you are highly interested in setting up statistical systems.
For instance, GTZ 每 on behalf of our Ministry 每 cooperates closely with the State Council Leading Group Office for Poverty Alleviation and Development in Beijing and with other Chinese organizations on a five-year project for the introduction of a participatory poverty monitoring and evaluation system in Jiangxi Province. The purpose is to enable the institutions involved in implementing China's poverty reduction program 2001-2010 and their staff at the national, province, and county levels to efficiently record and assess the impact, significance and sustainability of their poverty alleviation measures.
Out of all the projects which the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development conducts in this sector, this project is the largest and presents all players with major challenges.
We know how important it is to have functioning structures at all levels if we are to meet these challenges. Just like all other donors, the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development is itself faced with the enormous task of keeping statistical records of Germany's development efforts.
The Federal Republic of Germany's federative system requires smooth cooperation between all institutions and organizations involved in development cooperation. All lines come together in the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development: input from all ministries, from our 15 Federal States, from federal agencies, from churches, Political Foundations, and NGOs. We process their information in accordance with the directives of the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) and feed it into the DAC Official Development Assistance (ODA) statistics for purposes of international comparison.
The specific characteristics of ODA statistics and the large number of German development cooperation players make it rather difficult to record in precise terms our development cooperation contributions from the bilateral and multilateral spheres and from the fields of Technical and Financial Cooperation. Procedures have been developed in the course of decades which enable us to record and harmonize data both for our own purposes and for international comparison.
Now we are presented with the challenge, as a member of a large community of donors, of statistically recording the said MDGs as well.
This means on the way towards 2015:
• The necessity for countries and donors to internalize the MDGs and focus increasingly on the results achieved on the ground, in particular through
- a close relation between MDGs and the PRS framework,
- a stronger link between donor support and MDGs.
This also includes further work on needs and absorptive capacity.
• The necessity for collective and coordinated action to improve data quality and availability both at country and at international level, through
- coordinated capacity building efforts at country level,
- streamlined data collection and monitoring at international level,
- increased use of national monitoring systems and reports.
• The necessary increase in resources to achieve the Monterrey commitments, in particular through an increase in ODA, private initiatives, etc.
• Issues of policy coherence and harmonization should also be highlighted as ongoing work that should be given high priority.
If we all accept that statistics is a management and planning instrument and acknowledge its growing importance for countries' development, we will meet with success.
Because it is only when a country has become able to collect its core socioeconomic data itself that it is capable of taking action to enhance its people's standard of living.
I believe that China is well set to continue its process of positive political, economic and social change as the "Middle Kingdom."
Thank you for your attention!
|