Publication: Improving the Productivity of
National Offices for Statistics: Suriname Case Study
Loading...
Published
2023-07-31
ISSN
Date
2024-02-07
Editor(s)
Abstract
This Suriname case study presents the main conclusions of the application of Improving the Productivity of National Offices for Statistics (IPNOS), a tool developed by the World Bank to assess the functioning of national statistical offices (NSOs). This approach was implemented at the General Bureau of Statistics (Algemeen Bureau voor de Statistiek, ABS), the NSO of Suriname, in May-July 2023. The exercise has allowed the comprehensive identification of the main strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and challenges related to statistical production and dissemination in the country, as well the ABS coordination role with producers of national statistical systems (NSSs). The assessment has provided ABS with an action plan for the improvement of this crucial task in the future and has offered key recommendations for the implementation of the plan.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“Medina Giopp, Alejandro; Montes, Jose; Aldanondo, Jorge Martínez; Gadsden De La Peza, Paola; de Hoop, Jacobus Joost. 2023. Improving the Productivity of
National Offices for Statistics: Suriname Case Study. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/41012 License: CC BY-NC 3.0 IGO.”
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication Improving the Productivity of National Offices for Statistics(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-06)For decades, policy experts’ and practitioner consensus has been growing about the crucial role quality data plays in informing policy making. This has led to investment and projects to increase quality data availability. But progress has been slow, as reflected by slow improvement in country statistical capacity, many countries remain data deprived. The IPNOS toolkit is based on the notion that producing more and better statistics, while requiring adequate resources, should also be efficient. Various initiatives assess national statistical systems’ (NSS) and data production. The World Bank’s IPNOS initiative complements existing kits, providing in-depth analytical tools to evaluate the efficiency of national statistical offices (NSOs), including costs, data quality, and NSO management. IPNOS application in 3 countries has identified bottlenecks and areas for improvement to inform data policies.Publication Assessing Statistical Needs in Belize for Data-Driven Decision-Making(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-05-22)This note presents findings of a Statistical Needs Assessment (SNA) of the Statistical Institute of Belize (SIB). The aim of the assessment is to inform efforts to enhance the national statistical system for data driven decision-making. Belize has shown good progress in the development of its statistical infrastructure. Some challenges persist in data collection, coordination, and usage. Key priorities include developing the National Strategy for the Development of Statistics (NSDS), integrating administrative data, and addressing resource constraints. Strengthening these areas will bolster SIB's capacity as a pivotal data producer and coordinator for informed policymaking.Publication Open Data Challenges and Opportunities for National Statistical Offices(Washington, DC, 2014-07-01)Open Data initiatives are transforming how governments and other public institutions interact and provide services to their constituents. They increase transparency and value to citizens, reduce inefficiencies and barriers to information, enable data-driven applications that improve public service delivery, and provide public data that can stimulate innovative business opportunities. As the gatekeepers of official statistics, National Statistics Offices (NSOs) produce many datasets that could typically comprise the foundation of an Open Data program. They may also have relationships with other data producing agencies in the national statistical system and have expertise in dealing with the many technical and data quality issues attendant in publishing data. In short, they are extremely well placed to make a valuable contribution to Open Data initiatives. Despite these advantages, NSOs do not always feature prominently in government-sponsored Open Data programs and they may be missing an important opportunity to expand the use and re-use of the data they produce. The goal of this working paper is to better understand the opportunities and challenges that Open Data presents to NSOs and to identify what steps and solutions are needed to enable NSOs to play a valuable role in national or sub-national Open Data initiatives.Publication A Shot in the Arm(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022-09)This brief reports the findings from innovative high frequency phone surveys (HFPS) on the drivers of COVID-19 vaccine acceptance and uptake in the Caribbean among the adult population.Publication Can Environmental Cash Transfers Reduce Deforestation and Improve Social Outcomes? A Regression Discontinuity Analysis of Mexico’s National Program (2011-2014)(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2019-01)Environmental conditional cash transfers, or "payments for ecosystem services" are a centerpiece of global efforts to protect biodiversity, safeguard watersheds, and mitigate climate change by reducing forest loss. This paper evaluates the impacts of Mexico's national payments for ecosystem services program, which provides five years of payments to landowners in exchange for maintaining and managing natural land cover. Using a regression discontinuity design, the paper studies impacts on environmental, socioeconomic, and social capital outcomes for the 2011-14 program cohorts. The analysis finds that treated communities increased management activities to protect land cover, such as patrolling for illegal conversion or combatting soil erosion (by 48 percent compared to controls). The program reduced the loss of tree cover in areas at high risk of deforestation (by 29 percent compared to controls), with effects being larger for those that have been in the program the longest (38 percent compared to controls). These results are similar to estimates of impact for earlier program cohorts and continue to highlight the importance of targeting the program to areas of high risk of land cover loss to increase environmental effectiveness. The program continued to reach poor communities and households, but estimated impacts on household wealth indicators are small in magnitude and not statistically significant. These results indicate that community-level conditional payments did not harm household-level socioeconomic indicators, a key safeguard requirement of conservation policies of the United Nations Programme on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation. The data also show that payments for ecosystem services significantly increased community social capital -- the institutions, attitudes, and values that govern human interactions -- (by 9 percent compared to controls), and these externally provided incentives did not crowd out household contributions to other community work.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication Digital Africa(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-03-13)All African countries need better and more jobs for their growing populations. "Digital Africa: Technological Transformation for Jobs" shows that broader use of productivity-enhancing, digital technologies by enterprises and households is imperative to generate such jobs, including for lower-skilled people. At the same time, it can support not only countries’ short-term objective of postpandemic economic recovery but also their vision of economic transformation with more inclusive growth. These outcomes are not automatic, however. Mobile internet availability has increased throughout the continent in recent years, but Africa’s uptake gap is the highest in the world. Areas with at least 3G mobile internet service now cover 84 percent of Africa’s population, but only 22 percent uses such services. And the average African business lags in the use of smartphones and computers as well as more sophisticated digital technologies that catalyze further productivity gains. Two issues explain the usage gap: affordability of these new technologies and willingness to use them. For the 40 percent of Africans below the extreme poverty line, mobile data plans alone would cost one-third of their incomes—in addition to the price of access devices, apps, and electricity. Data plans for small- and medium-size businesses are also more expensive than in other regions. Moreover, shortcomings in the quality of internet services—and in the supply of attractive, skills-appropriate apps that promote entrepreneurship and raise earnings—dampen people’s willingness to use them. For those countries already using these technologies, the development payoffs are significant. New empirical studies for this report add to the rapidly growing evidence that mobile internet availability directly raises enterprise productivity, increases jobs, and reduces poverty throughout Africa. To realize these and other benefits more widely, Africa’s countries must implement complementary and mutually reinforcing policies to strengthen both consumers’ ability to pay and willingness to use digital technologies. These interventions must prioritize productive use to generate large numbers of inclusive jobs in a region poised to benefit from a massive, youthful workforce—one projected to become the world’s largest by the end of this century.Publication Doing Business 2014 : Understanding Regulations for Small and Medium-Size Enterprises(Washington, DC: World Bank Group, 2013-10-28)Eleventh in a series of annual reports comparing business regulation in 185 economies, Doing Business 2014 measures regulations affecting 11 areas of everyday business activity: Starting a business, Dealing with construction permits, Getting electricity, Registering property, Getting credit, Protecting investors, Paying taxes, Trading across borders, Enforcing contracts, Closing a business, Employing workers. The report updates all indicators as of June 1, 2013, ranks economies on their overall “ease of doing business”, and analyzes reforms to business regulation – identifying which economies are strengthening their business environment the most. The Doing Business reports illustrate how reforms in business regulations are being used to analyze economic outcomes for domestic entrepreneurs and for the wider economy. Doing Business is a flagship product by the World Bank and IFC that garners worldwide attention on regulatory barriers to entrepreneurship. More than 60 economies use the Doing Business indicators to shape reform agendas and monitor improvements on the ground. In addition, the Doing Business data has generated over 870 articles in peer-reviewed academic journals since its inception.Publication World Development Report 2006(Washington, DC, 2005)This year’s Word Development Report (WDR), the twenty-eighth, looks at the role of equity in the development process. It defines equity in terms of two basic principles. The first is equal opportunities: that a person’s chances in life should be determined by his or her talents and efforts, rather than by pre-determined circumstances such as race, gender, social or family background. The second principle is the avoidance of extreme deprivation in outcomes, particularly in health, education and consumption levels. This principle thus includes the objective of poverty reduction. The report’s main message is that, in the long run, the pursuit of equity and the pursuit of economic prosperity are complementary. In addition to detailed chapters exploring these and related issues, the Report contains selected data from the World Development Indicators 2005‹an appendix of economic and social data for over 200 countries. This Report offers practical insights for policymakers, executives, scholars, and all those with an interest in economic development.Publication Classroom Assessment to Support Foundational Literacy(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-03-21)This document focuses primarily on how classroom assessment activities can measure students’ literacy skills as they progress along a learning trajectory towards reading fluently and with comprehension by the end of primary school grades. The document addresses considerations regarding the design and implementation of early grade reading classroom assessment, provides examples of assessment activities from a variety of countries and contexts, and discusses the importance of incorporating classroom assessment practices into teacher training and professional development opportunities for teachers. The structure of the document is as follows. The first section presents definitions and addresses basic questions on classroom assessment. Section 2 covers the intersection between assessment and early grade reading by discussing how learning assessment can measure early grade reading skills following the reading learning trajectory. Section 3 compares some of the most common early grade literacy assessment tools with respect to the early grade reading skills and developmental phases. Section 4 of the document addresses teacher training considerations in developing, scoring, and using early grade reading assessment. Additional issues in assessing reading skills in the classroom and using assessment results to improve teaching and learning are reviewed in section 5. Throughout the document, country cases are presented to demonstrate how assessment activities can be implemented in the classroom in different contexts.Publication World Development Report 2011(World Bank, 2011)The 2011 World development report looks across disciplines and experiences drawn from around the world to offer some ideas and practical recommendations on how to move beyond conflict and fragility and secure development. The key messages are important for all countries-low, middle, and high income-as well as for regional and global institutions: first, institutional legitimacy is the key to stability. When state institutions do not adequately protect citizens, guard against corruption, or provide access to justice; when markets do not provide job opportunities; or when communities have lost social cohesion-the likelihood of violent conflict increases. Second, investing in citizen security, justice, and jobs is essential to reducing violence. But there are major structural gaps in our collective capabilities to support these areas. Third, confronting this challenge effectively means that institutions need to change. International agencies and partners from other countries must adapt procedures so they can respond with agility and speed, a longer-term perspective, and greater staying power. Fourth, need to adopt a layered approach. Some problems can be addressed at the country level, but others need to be addressed at a regional level, such as developing markets that integrate insecure areas and pooling resources for building capacity Fifth, in adopting these approaches, need to be aware that the global landscape is changing. Regional institutions and middle income countries are playing a larger role. This means should pay more attention to south-south and south-north exchanges, and to the recent transition experiences of middle income countries.