Regional Workshop

Strategic Planning for

Agricultural and Rural Statistics

Bangkok 17-19 March 2015

SPARS: Launch, Assessment and Planning

Christophe DUHAMEL Global Office FAO

Carola FABI Global Office FAO

SPARS Objectives

To provide countries with a basis for

• Establishing policy strengths and priorities

• Identify data needs, gaps, deficiencies,

duplications and inconsistencies

• Define future short- and long-term statistical

programs and interventions

• Use SPARS as a building block in the NSDS

Guidelines Objectives

To support country staff

• with a coherent and logical structure to design

and implement SPARS,

• With specific guidance as they implement the

logical plans,

• With a reference document that provides

recommendations in line with NSDS guidelines

developed by Paris21

Background

• Lack of integration of agricultural and rural

statistics into NSS contributed to their decline in

quantitative and qualitative terms

• Data are produced by several line ministries and

agencies: difficulties in coordinating, lack of

standards, duplications of work

• Scarce awareness of data producers on users

needs and policy initiatives

• On their end, policy makers make little use of

available data

Rationale

SPARS guidelines were developed to address

several issues:

•Evidence that the ag sector was not sufficiently

mainstreamed into the first round of the NSDS

•They are the second pillar of the global strategy

•Agricultural and rural statistics systems are

complex and specific issues deserve specific

solutions

•Need to simplify the NSDS approach

Overview: design process

1. Launch Phase Understanding, acknowledging, committing

Preparing

Integrating the SPARS in the NSDS

How to do it in practice?

2. Assessment Phase

3. Planning Phase Vision and Mission

Strategic Goals and Outputs: building a logframe

Action Planning

How to do it in practice?

Launching

Assessment

Planning

Launching

An inception and preparatory phase, the LAUCHING phase,

is important before carrying out the assessment to :

1. Raise Understanding, Acknowledging, Committing:

Raise awareness of national authorities on the importance

of strategic planning and buy them in

2. Do Preparation work: building a constituency, creating a

design team and develop a road map

*16

Understanding and

acknowledging …

…. by national stakeholders is a pre-requisite

1. Obtain recognition that agricultural statistics are essential

for development and that the current systems not always

meet demands demonstrate the importance of

statistics to the economy of the country

2. Recognize that a strategic planning approach is

necessary to bring change collectively manage

critical weaknesses and gaps, and use effectively scarce

resources or raise statistics profile and sustainability

*16

The 10 essentials of SPARS

design

• Backed by political support, nationally led and owned;

• Designed through a sound methodological approach, including M&E

mechanisms;

• Mainstreamed into the NSDS national process (if any);

• Covering the whole agricultural and rural sector;

• Policy and results based on quality fit for purpose;

• Taking into account what is in place and international commitments;

• Drawing on international statistical standards;

• Setting out an integrated and realistic statistical capacity building

programme;

• Funded by governments for its implementation;

• Serving as a coherence framework for external assistance.

*18

High level commitment..

…. Is necessary also to increase funding, and extending use

of statistical information to policy and decision-making

• The highest level of the Ministries of Agriculture should

champion the process

• Leadership at political level should be required throughout

the process and beyond

• All major decisions should be approved at high level to

ensure real ownership

*19

How to do it in practice?

• Preliminary advocacy work , e.g. meeting organized by

the MoA with high level authorities (government) resulting

in a draft document

• Obtain PUBLIC acknowledgement e.g. during an

international or national event, or in the framework of the

implementation of the Global Strategy, or through official

correspondence with development partners

• Take immediate action after commitment is made

• Organize an inaugural workshop

*19

Preparing phase

i. Decide WHO is managing the overall process of the

SPARS;

ii. building a constituency on several levels;

iii. establishing a team responsible for the design;

iv. identifying and engaging stakeholders and champions;

v. explaining how the SPARS will be integrated in the

NSDS process;

vi. developing a roadmap as a guiding document for the

full design of the SPARS

*21

i. Managing the process

• Which agency should be in charge of the overall

management of the SPARS process: coordinate SPARS

design and integration into the NSDS?

– Inclusive process bringing together the sub-sectors, experts,

working groups and development parners

• MoA or NSO? Link to agricultural policies, vs legal

responsibility for coordinating the NSS

NB. Managing the SPARS means managing change

NB. To a large extent, processes are country-specific (is

there an NSDS or not? NSS arrangements to consider?)

*22

ii. Building the constituency

Inclusiveness is key, the process needs specific

governance structure that should be based as far as

possible on existing structures.

3 recommended levels:

• A Steering Committee on Agriculture Statistics (SCA):

relevant representatives of significant stakeholders

• A Technical Working Committee on Agriculture Statistics

(TWA) : permanent Secretariat of the SCA, SPARS

coordinator

• Sub-Sectoral Technical Working Committees (S-TWA)

*24

iii. Establishing the design

team

• The Design Team is responsible for guiding the SPARS

process

– Members should be carefully selected for their commitment and

willingness

– They should become the implementing body of the SCA

• SPARS coordinator is a high level manager who should

lead the team, be the focal point in the TWA, represent agriculture

in the NSDS interagency committee

• Sub-sector strategies may require additional agreements

*26

iv. Stakeholders and champions

Have a strategic view: identify and characterize

stakeholders

• Who they are? Their objectives? Motivations? Sphere of

influence?

• Users, producers in all sub-sectors, development

partners, researchers ..

• Sub-sectors are the key to success for NSS coordination

Identify champions

• High level champions for advocacy, policy and strategy

• (mid-)Management for internal buy-in

*27

v. Integrating the SPARS in

the NSDS

• Integration is an ongoing process during the design and

the implementation

• It entails combining approaches, statistical programmes,

tools and bringing key players together

• The approach to follow will depend on the NSDS status:

whether in place, under design or not in place ..

The integration should help:

• Developing a master sampling frame and a common data

management system

• Align calendars

*29

vi. Drafting the roadmap

• The road map outlines the organization of the work

– Activities, schedule, resources

• The quality of the road map impacts on the SPARS

overall quality

• The road map should provide practical answers to the

inherent questions (how to do, what to do, who, when)

Four principles for the road map:

• Participatory and Inclusive process

• High level endorsement of main decisions

• Tailored to country specific conditions

• Encompasses all the official statistical production

*31

How to do it in practice?

• Clarify roles or the MoA and NSO as soon as possible

• Build on existing coordination structures (National Council

for Statistics of NSDS Inter-Agency Committee)

• Put the structure in place as soon as possible, assign

Roles and Responsibilities, ToR

• Sequence: TWA nominates the SPARS coordinator and

Design Team members.

– Consider ad hoc training for Design Team members

• Use a Stakeholder mapping exercise (by TWA) to

identify stakeholders and champions

How to do it in practice?

Draft by the Design team. Step-wise process:

• Briefing with the main stakeholders at the beginning of the process;

• Meeting bilaterally with important stakeholders (producers and users)

to finalize proposals on the constituency and sectoral working

committees;

• Designing the roadmap document;

• Drafting the budget for the design and identifying potential sources of

funding for the design;

• Presenting the draft roadmap to stakeholders;

• Obtaining the final roadmap for endorsement.

Launching

Assessment

Planning

IdCA and SPARS

Assessing the agricultural statistical system is a key phase :

• It provides an input in preparing strategic objectives and

action plans

• It serves as a benchmark to measure progress

• It serves to advocate support and capacity building among

national and international partners

N.B. Countries that already made an In-Depth Country Assessment -

> light assessment only

*34

Light assessment

• Use the IdCA as an input for SPARS assessment

• Important to cover user’s satisfaction dimension which

was not part of IdCA process

• Ask for changes in responsibilities, additional surveys,

unforeseen events that may have an impact

*44

Launching

Assessment

Planning

A results-based

management approach

Results chain in 4 main levels

• Start with your vision and mission statements

• Set your strategic goals/outcomes contributing to the

vision and mission …

• … and Define the corresponding outputs

• Design an action plan describing the activities to

produce the outputs

Use the results chain as a logframe to plan, monitor

and evaluate results!

*45

Planning:

Mission-Vision

Strategic Goals / Outputs

Action Plan

Mission and Vision

Where do we want to be in 5-10 years?

What is our business?

• Build a compelling vision for your future that contains

goals, values, beliefs and expected outcomes

• The mission that creates a commonality of interest,

that describes the purpose, customers, products,

markets, philosophy.

It should be short and pragmatic

*46

Mission and Vision

How to do it in practice?

Logically, the vision comes first and strategic goals are

then methods to achieve it

• Prepare various vision and mission proposals based on the

assessment, then develop the strategic objectives

• Be pragmatic: in reality the two processes proceed in parallel and

with iterations

• Be consistent between the vision and the mission

Communicate your vision/mission to staff and users

*47

Example: Peru

• Vision: to develop, generate and disseminate

agricultural statistics of high quality in an integrated and

harmonized manner in order to satisfy users’ demand

• Mission: to become a consolidated and sustainable

system able to support the decision making process in

the agricultural sector

*47

Planning:

Mission-Vision

Strategic Goals / Outputs

Action Plan

Strategic goals and

outputs

• What are the overall accomplishments to achieve =

identification of strategic goals and related outputs

• Strategic goals are broken down in outputs and later

activities described in the action plans

• Strategic goals cover in general the whole duration of the

plan while outputs and activities may not

*48

Strategic goals and

outputs: recommendations

• Should focus on structural changes which are more

likely to direct and sustain changes

• Strategic goals are about what is absolutely important and

feasible not what is desirable. Balance ambitions/means!

• Should take care about possible cross-cuttings with

overarching NSDS

• Remember that performance will be measured against

strategic goals !

*48

Examples of Strategic

Goals

• Improving coordination, management and legal framework of statistics

• Strengthening statistical processes and operations and improving their

quality

• Meeting the national demand and matching the international

requirements

• Developing a comprehensive HR strategy

• Investing in statistical and physical infrastructure

• Establishing better partnerships

• Developing a sector-wide financing strategy.

*49

Examples of Goal and

related outputs

• Strengthening statistical processes and operations and improving their

quality

– Fostering the use of a master sampling frame and promoting an integrated survey

framework approach;

– Conducting a standardization policy in close collaboration with the overall

NSS (i.e nomenclatures, definitions, geographic codes, etc.)

– Improving data collection linked to surveys and census programme;

– …

*49

1. Elaborating strategic goals and outputs at sub-sector

level

Use participatory process with sub-sector committees involving users,

producers, resource providers

Ensure consistency across sub-sectors (through design team)

2. Reviewing the proposals from the sub-sectors and

elaborating a synthesis at sector level

Prioritize actions at this stage, rank outputs, focus on few quick wins

3. Validation by the Technical Working Committee

*51 Strategic goals/outputs

How to do it in practice?

Planning:

Mission-Vision

Strategic Goals / Outputs

Action Plan

Action plan: final stage

• Defines who does what when

• Provides a tools for internal business management;

• Serves to negotiate resources with government/donors

• Structured document including:

• Core action plan

• Overall budget

• Calendar of censuses and surveys

• Advocacy-Communication Plan

• M&E framework

• Financing Plan

*53

The Core Action Plan

Must be realistic and consider the capacity of absorption

Must take into account the ongoing statistical programme,

activities in the NSDS and the changes

Must cover in details at least the first two years, and be more

approximate in the later years

Must cover a list of activities organized by outputs

Who will do what? When? How? In which order? For what?

Dependencies in activities must be identified for a better schedule

N.B. The Action Plan is a living document!

*53

The Core Budget

The Action Plan must be underpinned by a Core Budget

• Split current costs/investment by implementing action

• Describe how resources will be used, by main expenditure

items,

• Break-down by sub-sectors and activities

• Specify the expected burden on the national budget or

external financing requirements

Costing the SPARS can be difficult

*54

Calendar of Censuses and

Surveys Example: Tanzania

Survey Name

Frequency Year

2014/15 2015/16 2016/17 2017/18 2018/19

Census of Population and Dwellings 10 yearly

Agricultural Sample Census 10 yearly

Annual Agriculture Sample Survey Annual Pilot Rollout Expanded

Module

National Panel Survey – LSMS ISA 2 yearly

Household Budget Survey 5 yearly

NBS Quarterly Production

Questionnaire Quarterly or Annually

Crop Forecasting and Early Warning Bi-weekly

Price monitoring routine collections

Wholesale (3x week);

Retail –monthly;

Livestock- weekly

Trade data routine collection

Fisheries Routine Data Collection

*56

Advocacy and

Communication plan

The SPARS is an opportunity for statistical advocacy

• Particularly important in the design phase to support discussion on

ownership, users/producers dialogue, funding and governance

The plan

• must reinforce confidence from the public, raise awareness and inform

stakeholders of the challenges ahead

• must identify target audiences and adapt the messages

The communication and advocacy plan requires technical,

human and financial resources to be successfully implemented

*56

The financing strategy

• Statistical development is a political matter, decisions taken

at the highest level

• Must be envisaged at the beginning of the process and

combined with advocacy at high level

• The Action Plan can be financed from national resources, or

from national and external resources: necessary dialogue

Optimal balance to be found

*58

Monitoring and Evaluation Plan

• Well-planned and continuing monitoring is important

• Requires well specified indicators and collection of basic

information for the baseline

• Frequency and responsible officer must be clearly identified

• Monitoring and reporting must be included in the logframe

*59

• will judge the relevance, performance, and success of the SPARS

• concerns the achievement of results, the effects and impacts on the global

goal of the SPARS

• must identify which expected results have not been achieved, and the

reasons for this

• takes place at few points in time

Mid-term evaluation

Final evaluation

Peer review

Monitoring & Evaluation must result in regular reporting

*61

Monitoring and Evaluation Plan

Planning

How to do it

in practice?

11 phases proposed

Planning: phases 1-6

Bottom-up approach

1. List of costed activities at sub-sector level by outputs

2. Synthesis of costed activities at sector level

3. Preparing a draft calendar of censuses and surveys

4. Preparing the advocacy/communication plan

5. Designing the M&E framework

6. Finalizing a financing strategy

*40

Planning: phases 7=11

7. Consolidating the SPARS document

8. Validation by the Technical Working group

9. Organisation of a national workshop

10. Preparing the final SPARS document

11. Validation by National authorities

*40

www.gsars.org

Thank You