Soon after the MDGs emanated from the Millennium Declaration, the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) forged a partnership on the MDGs, bringing together three major multilateral development agencies to strengthen regional efforts in developing the MDG agenda in Asia and the Pacific. The Statistics Division has played a key role in this tripartite partnership, producing the first regional MDG report in the region in 2005 entitled A future within reach, followed by the MDGs: Progress in Asia and the Pacific 2006. In October of last year the MDGs: Progress in Asia and the Pacific 2007 report was launched, making the latest assessment on how countries in the Asia and the Pacific have moved forward towards achieving the MDGs http://mdgasiapacific.org. Currently, the Statistics Division is working on strengthening the basis for tracking progress on the MDGs through enhancing the availability and quality of MDG indicators, particularly in the sectors and countries of concern as identified in the last MDG progress report. The project also aims at reconciling differences between national and international MDG estimates, in a joined effort embarked upon by all United Nations Regional Commissions.

Despite recent efforts and progress, disability statistics in most countries in Asia and the Pacific remain severely underdeveloped. The Biwako Millennium Framework for Action (BMF) calls for significant improvements in the availability, quality, comparability and policy relevance of disability statistics in the region. It is imperative to develop a unifying international approach for data collection through censuses and surveys, and to increase national political commitment and technical capacity to collect and disseminate better disability statistics formulating and evaluating national disability policies and programmes.

Built upon the outcome of the previous ESCAP/WHO disability project conducted in 2004-06, the Statistics Division is implementing in 2007-2009 a United Nations Development Account project - Improvement of Disability Measurement and Statistics in Support of the Biwako Millennium Framework and Regional Census Programme. It will combine development of standard measurements for disability data collection through pilot studies and analyses, with in-country advocacy workshops, targeted training, advisory services, promotion of country-to-country cooperation and knowledge management.

The Statistics Division is implementing the project in close collaboration with UNSD, the Washington Group on Disability Statistics, WHO, ECE, the Budapest Initiative on Measurement of Health Status, selected NSOs in the region and with ESID and SIAP. A Steering Committee is set up to oversee the project design and implementation and the project activities are pursued through a project Task Team led by national experts.

In many developing countries, a significant proportion of people are employed in the informal sector. While it is often assumed that poverty, for instance, is more prevalent among this group or that women are disproportionately represented in the informal sector, little objective and internationally-comparable information is available about their living and working conditions, income, social protection or contribution to the economy. Standard labour force and enterprise surveys usually capture, or separately identify, only a small fraction of those whose livelihood relies on working in the informal sector or in unprotected jobs. Without taking into account informal activities, estimates of female economic participation rates could be implausibly low, gross domestic product (GDP) significantly miscalculated, and the share of population living below national poverty line overestimated. The data and measurement problems weaken the formulation, implementation and evaluation of policies and programmes aimed at promoting gender equality, eliminating child labour, generating decent work for all and reducing poverty.

The Statistics Division is implementing in 2007-2009 the United Nations Development Account -funded project that aims to improve the measurement of the informal sector and informal employment. Its main objectives of the project are (i) to increase availability of data on informal sector and informal employment and (ii) to improve analysis of this data to calculate the contribution of informal sector to employment and to GDP. The ultimate aim of the project is to increase the number of countries which regularly collect and disseminate informal employment and informal sector data and integrate them into employment and National Accounts estimates. The project is implemented by ESCAP (as the lead agency), ECLAC and ESCWA in partnership with the Delhi Group on Informal Sector Statistics, ECA, ECE, ECLAC, ESCWA, ILO, UNSD, WIEGO.

National statistical systems conduct household surveys and various censuses at significant cost. The results are tabulated and published routinely. The collected data are, however, very valuable well beyond the published results, especially for researchers. Many of the modern statistical analysis techniques, including regression analysis, statistical matching, and various methods of detailed profiling of specific phenomena, are not possible with tabulations, but require unit level data, i.e., records on individuals or individual households. Microdata-based research could, for instance, find means to accelerate development in order to meet the time-bound targets of the MDGs.

The Statistics Division is implementing the World Bank/PARIS21-funded project on improving access to survey and census microdata. The project is part of the global Accelerated Data Programme (ADP). It advocates and provides technical assistance in the documentation, preservation and safe dissemination of microdata.

The Statistical Institute for Asia and the Pacific (SIAP), which is located in Chiba/Tokyo, Japan, is one of the four regional institutes of ESCAP. Its work programme is part of the Statistics subprogramme of ESCAP. There is a clear division of labour between SIAP and the Statistics Division: SIAP provides training for statisticians on official statistics, whereas the Division focuses on the development and promotion of international statistical standards through various modalities. SIAP has a Governing Council which reviews its operations and considers and adopts the annual and long-term programmes of work of the Institute. More information about SIAP can be obtained at the Institute's own website.

ESCAP contributes to statistical capacity also by providing forums for regional statisticians, policy makers and other data users to interact, exchange experiences and best practices, and to form common views on the development and implementation of international statistical standards. The most prominent of those forums are the ESCAP Committee on Poverty Reduction, the Committee on Statistics, SIAP/ESCAP Management Seminars and APEX Forums for Asia/Pacific Statistics.

This web site archives materials from the concluded capacity building projects and technical and parliamentary meetings since 1994.