National Statistical System Assessment of the

Federated States of Micronesia

March, 2017

Nan Madol is an archaeological site off the island of Pohnpei which consists of nearly 100 small artificial islands bordered by canals. The only ancient city ever built on a coral reef, Nan Madol was the ceremonial and political seat of the Saudeleur dynasty.

NSS Assessments are conducted to identify the necessary statistics and infrastructure for a country to develop its national statistics system in order to support good governance and sound decision making.

ABOUT

COVER

Assessment Report of the

FSM National Statistical System

Gerald Haberkorn PARIS21 Consultant

18 March 2017

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TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. Introduction ........................................................................................................................................ 3

1.1 FSM national statistical system ...................................................................................................... 3 1.2 Rationale for FSM NSDS............................................................................................................... 3

2. NSS assessment methodology.............................................................................................................. 4 3. FSM NSS Assessment Findings .......................................................................................................... 5

3.1 Institutional Challenges ................................................................................................................. 5 3.2 Common Challenges experienced across the National Statistical System........................................... 7

3.3 Challenges specific to statistical agencies........................................................................................ 8 3.4. Challenges specific to sectoral agencies ......................................................................................... 9

4. Review of FSM Statistical Legislation, Public Law No. 577 .................................................................11

5. Summary of Recommendations ..........................................................................................................14

ANNEXES

Annex 1: Pacific NSS Assessment Template

Annex 2: Agencies and staff consulted

Annex 3: Sector assessment – Summary of Key Findings

Annex 4: Individual Agency assessments

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1. Introduction The Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) is an independent Pacific Island country, comprised of four states - Yap, Chuuk, Pohnpei and Kosrae. The total resident population of 104 600 in 20161 lives on some 607 islands, which are scattered across more than one million square miles (2,600,000 km2) of the Pacific Ocean. These islands stretch 1 700 miles (2 735 km) from west (Yap) to east (Kosrae), giving the FSM one of the largest Exclusive Economic Zones in the world. Each of the four states centres around one “main island”, containing the states administrative centre, with all but Kosrae including numerous atolls.

1.1 FSM national statistical system

The FSM national statistical agency, the Division of Statistics, is one of two divisions of the Department of Resources and Development. It is headed by an Assistant Secretary, the most senior public service designation of the FSM. It has 20 staff, nine of whom work in the main office in Palikir, the nations’ capital in Pohnpei state, with the remaining eleven co-located within the four state governments, serving two principal functions: compile and collect state level statistics for both state level use and transfer to the central office for national data aggregation, as well as manage the state operations of major national statistical collections, like regular Population and Housing censuses and household surveys. Entrusted with the overall responsibility for all matters related to the collection and production of official statistics as outlined in the Statistics and Census Act Public Law 577 from 1988, the Division of Statistics’ work is complemented by statistical activities undertaken by other federal government agencies and statutory bodies, with the Departments of Education and Health & Social Affairs, Immigration, and Customs, and the National Oceanic Resources Management Authority, NORMA, all undertaking important sector-specific activities.

Against this backdrop of a federated government structure and many statistical activities entrusted to various government departments and national agencies, coordination is imperative to ensure compliance with statistical standards and data quality, as well as to avoid the duplication of efforts. This is becoming increasingly important with growing demands for data outside the traditional domain of demographic, economic and general social statistics, to support evidence-based decision-making pertaining to development challenges across the natural resources sector, including environment and climate change, and many other thematic policy challenges outlined in FSM’s own 2023 Action Plan, the Framework for Pacific Regionalism, and the 2030 International Development Agenda’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) – where even the most basic statistics are lacking, collection is ad hoc, and analytical capacity is thin on the ground.

1.2 Rationale for FSM NSDS To tackle such a cross-sectoral challenge requires more than legislation and good intentions – it requires a national strategy that guides statistical activities across sectors, at federal and state levels; spells out what is needed by whom, when and for what purpose; and outlines potential downsides or opportunity costs for the government (and ultimately the people of the FSM). Such information is not available or accessible when needed.

The National Strategy for the Development of Statistics (NSDS) provides such a framework, which the FSM Government has committed to develop, in collaboration with the Partnership in Statistics in the 21st Century (PARIS21) and the Pacific Community (SPC). It provides countries with a vision of the development of statistics that is consistent with their national development priorities and plans, and also contains a detailed and costed action plan for the production and dissemination of statistics over a period of 5 to 10 years, including capacity development needs, and required institutional and statistical infrastructure improvements.

1 Mid-year 2016 Population Estimates , Paci fic Community (www.spc.int/prism)

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To assist FSM in NSDS formulation, a consultant has been engaged to provide support with (a) the conduct of the NSDS launching and country training, and (b) to undertake an assessment of its national statistical system (NSS) to establish the current state of affairs and identify statistical development needs for the medium term.

This report describes the findings of the assessment undertaken between 21 – 30 November 2016, in FSM, both as part of the NSDS launching and country training workshop, as well as through individual agency assessment conversations, guided by the Pacific NSS Assessment template developed by PARIS21 and SPC.

This is a Final Draft Assessment report to be validated by key stakeholders (including the FSM Statistics Division, SPC and PARIS21 for comments) in advance of the NSDS Strategic Planning Workshop, tentatively scheduled on 18-20 April 2017, where further discussion on the assessment results will be discussed.

2. NSS assessment methodology An integral component of using the NSDS approach is the undertaking of a comprehensive assessment of a country’s National Statistical System (NSS), documenting and evaluating the current state and their technical and institutional capacities regarding (i) data collection, (ii) unmet data needs they may have, (iii) the prevailing situation concerning data availability and access, and (iv) their current practices regarding data analysis and dissemination in support of national development plans and policies.

As demonstrated in other small Pacific Island Developing States (PSIDS), assessments have been undertaken by national experts/consultants, and have shown that such capacity is rather thin on the ground with most of these people already in permanent employment with national governments, the private sector or resident international organizations. A different approach has been taken in the Federated States of Micronesia, with the international PARIS21 NSDS consultant entrusted to undertake this task, employing an assessment template jointly developed by the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC) and PARIS21 (Annex-1).

The consultation process involved one-on-one conversations between the international consultant and relevant/available senior staff of the various government agencies, immediately following the FSM NSDS launching workshop in Palikir, the capital of FSM (24 – 26 November 2016), from Friday 25 November until Wednesday 30 November 2016.

Agencies and staff consulted were as follows:

Division of Statistics • all four State statisticians (Yap, Chuuk, Pohnpei and Kosrae) • Division of Statistics

Economic Sector • Department of Finance and Administration, Assistant Secretary-Budget, and international advisor • Trade and Investment unit, Assistant Secretary, Department of Resources and Development, R&D, and

the two Trade and Investment officers • Tourism unit, Assistant Secretary, Department of Resources and Development, R&D, as the Tourism

officer was overseas at the time

Social Sector • Department of Education, Secretary of Department, and both officers working with the education

Management Information System (EMIS) • Department of Health and Social Affairs, Secretary of Department, Assistant Secretary and two staff

working on the Health Information System • Gender Unit (part of Health and Social Affairs) Natural Resources Sector

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• Agriculture and Quarantine section, Assistant Secretary, Department of Resources and Development, R&D, as only officer was overseas at the time

• National Oceanic Resources Management Authority (NORMA), Chief of Management and Development, and 8 staff representing all 3 NORMA divisions

• Environment section, Director of Office of Environment and Emergency Management (OEED), and his Sustainable Development Officer.

Summaries of the one-on-one consultations with the various agencies are accessible in Annex-4 with narrative sector-wide summaries presented in Annex-3.

3. FSM NSS Assessment Findings Rather than attempting a cross-sectoral analysis of the findings, it would seem more expedient and useful for the initial results of the draft FSM NSS assessment (to be validated during the upcoming NSDS strategic planning workshop), to highlight broad impressions of patterns, contrasts and similarities that would assist the design of the FSM NSDS in terms of identifying cross-system priorities, and where needed, more agency-specific actions and interventions. The observations/findings herein were based on one-on-one interviews with officials and staff from 16 agencies, and several follow-up e-mail conversations, where further information and clarifications were sought, or to verify specific information. The assessment findings will be subject to a validation exercise during the upcoming 2nd NSDS workshop in April where one of the outcomes of the workshop will be the final NSS assessment report. To allow agencies time to review the report, copies will be made available to all agencies consulted prior to the upcoming workshop.

A major finding from each of the summary assessments of the Economic, Social and Natural Resources sectors, as well as the Division of Statistics and its four state offices was the diversity of challenges confronting the 11 sectoral and 5 statistical bodies reviewed. There were several common challenges identified by most as negatively impacting on their work, in terms of adversely impacting on their respective outputs, regarding both the type of products they are mandated and/or wish to deliver, and do so in both a regular and timely manner. There were other challenges, more specific to particular agencies, which point to agency-specific/systemic challenges. It is also worth highlighting that these are not confined to specific sectors (economic, social, natural resources), with positives and room for improvement transcending all three.

3.1 Institutional Challenges The FSM national statistical system faces a number of critical institutional issues that affect the overall functioning of the system and thereby impact the production, dissemination, analysis and use of statistics at all levels. 3.1.1 FSM Statistical Legislation, Public Law No. 577

One of the most critical issues impacting the performance of the FSM NSS is the datedness of Public Law 577, Statistics and Census Act of 1988, which governs all statistical operations in the country. It confers legal responsibility for the collection, publication and overall governance of official statistics to a position and agency which no longer exist: the National Planner, Head of the Office of Planning and Statistics. While this responsibility is currently vested in the Assistant Secretary for Statistics, Department of Resources and Development, it is unclear how the incumbent could legally enforce this legislation, if required, for which she has no legal mandate.

The law highlights the importance of economic, demographic and social statistics needed for the formulation of development plans, it is very specific about which economic statistics are required, yet provides no detail on essential demographic and social statistics that need to be collected, and makes no mention at all about data and statistical information about the country’s natural resources.

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While this situation reflects the reality of development planning in the 1980s, with a primary focus on economic growth eventually adding a social component in its emphasis on “growth with equity”, natural resources where available, were there to be “developed”.

What it also shows is a moderate disconnect between statistics, and the information required for policy and planning. This is not say that policy analysts and planners do not value data and evidence to be able to undertake their work; to the contrary, it has transpired throughout this assessment in many references to unmet data needs adversely impacting on people’s ability to “do their job”. What seems missing is an attempt to tackle this challenge in terms of opportunity costs – pointing out policies and associated plans that cannot be formulated because of a lack of evidence, that cannot be monitored because of benchmarks and available indicators, and which will also impact on the governments’ ability to account for development outcomes or results.

A recommended update of the current FSM statistical legislation as discussed in Part 4, and the proposed formulation of a FSM National Strategy for the Development of Statistics will provide the platform to establish a much closer link between statistics and policy. This link will be bridged by focusing on outcomes, opportunities and opportunity costs, enabling a regular dialogue between data users and producers to validate that statistics collected actual drive and enable policy development and implementation, and triggering of new statistical activities through development priorities and monitoring requirements. 3.1.2 Resources constraints

Although not specifically mentioned during the NSS assessment consultations, a common challenge to all agencies consulted (with the exception of NORMA, the Departments of Education, Health and Social Affairs, and to some extent Finance and Administration) are the limited resources at their disposal to undertake key statistical activities required to perform their mandated tasks, as will be further elaborated in Part 3. This includes limited staff numbers, as illustrated in many areas of Government having but one single dedicated officer allocated to a specific policy area, such as Agriculture, Trade, Investment, Tourism, and Gender, and entails budgetary constraints in these areas dedicated to compiling and analysing statistics relevant to their policy work. What puts NORMA, the Departments of Education, Health and to some extent also Finance in a better position to compile and analyse statistics relevant to their work compared to other agencies as has transpired throughout this NSS assessment, are several distinct characteristics and features unique to these agencies and the work they perform:

• Being valued, recognized as important Seen as, and being recognized for playing a key role in/for Government, with their work essential to improve development prospects, they are comparatively well resourced, in terms of staff and budget.

• Having a specific data/analytical role and mandate Data collection/compilation, and transformation of data into information is a core agency business for NORMA and Finance; it essential for Education and Health in order to perform their core business, which is providing quality education and health services for all.

• Not performing these tasks, and delivering results, has visible consequences o In the case of NORMA, inaccurate catch-data has severe impacts on stock-management

measures, and generating income through allocation of fishing days and collection of license fees o Access to quality and timely statistics, and the ability to analyze/interpret this data is essential to

sound financial policy advice impacting on all other areas of Government, the country’s private sector and foreign investment

o Regarding education, lacking accurate numbers of eligible students (children in specific age-groups) will compromise planning, leading to over-crowded or half-empty classrooms, non-optimal allocation of teaching resources and negatively impact learning outcomes – with the latter also compromised by inadequate information on teacher performance, and the Department not being able to take corrective measures

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o As with education, health needs to have access to accurate population statistics, to be able to provide cores services: children in specific age-groups and location to ensure adequate vaccination coverage; women of child-bearing age, and current fertility rates, to ensure provisions of adequate Maternal and Child Health services; and accurate cause of death data to inform health policy, and prepare for medical contingencies

• Ability to attract more financial support from Government and international development partners than others While unable to obtain information from NORMA about its annual operating budget due to the unavailability of its Managing Director at the time, its ability to have a permanent data collection workforce in the form of 80 observers on tuna vessels at any one time, equipped with tablets to record key information and transmit that in real-time to NORMA headquarters, and being able to satellite track the position of each licensed vessel, reflects both the importance of data collection and substantive resources allocated to this endeavour.

Education and Health are also in a financially better position than other agencies, with most of the annual US COMPACT allocation to the FSM allocated to these two sectors, which puts both in a position to have a dedicated budget for regular data collection, and the development and maintaining of associated Education Management (EMIS) and Health Information (HIS) systems. This, incidentally is no coincidence as pointed out by senior FSM and US officials, as US funding comes with regular reporting obligations, addressing both performance and achievement of planned objectives and results2.

3.2 Common Challenges experienced across the National Statistical System 3.2.1 Data flows from state to national agencies With each state responsible for the collection of statistics, the timely transfer of statistics from state to national agencies for subsequent aggregation into national statistics has been referred to throughout this assessment as the single biggest bottleneck. This often leads to lengthy delays for the requesting national agencies as some reporting takes months to receive.

This situation is not helped by the complex federal-state arrangements pertaining to statistical collections and data transfers, which are not adequately addressed under current law: while FSM’s four state statisticians are staff of the National Division of Statistics, most of their colleagues operating at state level, and from which they are required to collect state-level sectoral statistics (e.g. health, education), are state officials, and FSM’s current statistical legislation, Public Law 577 dating back to 1988, lacks information relevant to managing state-national statistical data transfers effectively and with efficiency, other than through a vague reference to “promote cooperation between national state governments with respect to the improvement of recording and reporting of statistics in the FSM (Sec: 3-4)”.

A second major problem identified by most agencies, refers to the quality of state statistics, particularly as many datasets are incomplete. This, according to most, is caused by both delays in data transfers from the outer islands of, particularly Yap and Chuuk, to the administrative centre on the main island and, and by chronic underreporting from the outer islands which often remains unchecked before being transferred to the respective national agencies. Many national data users and producers refer to chronic under-reporting of state statistics as the main issue, emphasizing the effects of the data collected and compiled on both the main islands as well outer islands.

2 A Joint Economic Management Committee (JEMCO) consisting of representatives of both nations is responsible for ensuring that assistance funds are spent effectively, with the a im of fostering good governance and economic sel f-rel iance. A set of 32 performance indicators has been developed, 21 for education and 13 for health, with both departments required to provide regular reports , which are conditional to enable these department to drawn down funds for i ts operation.

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3.2.2 Outdated means of data dissemination The most common practice of publicizing or sharing information by government agencies is still confined to reports, administrative notes and press releases. But with developments in technology and connectivity, having a good website offers huge potential to improve data accessibility and wider dissemination of statistical information, as long as these sites are regularly updated and maintained. Apart from the Division of Statistics website, most government agencies, including the 4 state statistical offices, have not yet fully developed their website infrastructure that would allow for a more strategic use of this means of communication, and which could be a solution to resolve data transfer issues and improve data and information dissemination, among others. Currently, there appear insufficient resources allocated to set-up and subsequently maintain and update agency websites across government, as illustrated in many websites’ reference to “currently being under construction”. Along similar lines, social media is becoming a prominent form of data dissemination by governments, including national statistical agencies across the world, but this form of communication has not caught up as yet across the region, despite the universal and ever growing popularity of cell phones.

3.3 Challenges specific to statistical agencies 3.3.1 FSM Division of Statistics, R&D Despite having 20 staff on its payroll, and thus making it a mid-size Pacific island national statistics office, 11 staff are actually working at state level, leaving it with 9 staff working at the national level: headed by an Assistant Secretary, who is supported by an Accounts manager, a database-IT-webmaster specialist and an ICT technician. This leaves the National Division of Statistics with just 5 professional statisticians, although the current Assistant Secretary still does considerable statistical work herself 3.

Given the organizational set-up of the Statistics Division, it can be compared with the smaller Pacific island statistics offices that have the mandate to collect, process and manage the same volume of statistics and statistical products as other Pacific island national statistical offices of a much larger size.

The regular demands to the Statistics Division coupled with the increased data requirements arising from new national and international development agendas would invariably add to a permanent work overload given its current personnel complement. The increased data demand slows down and limits what the Statistics Division can produce as statistical output. During major national collections (i.e., population and agricultural censuses, household surveys) when all staff would be involved, further delay in the regular activities is inevitable, severely compromising the production and dissemination of statistical information.

There is currently an imbalanced structure within the Division in terms of specialisation, where 4 of the 5 professional statisticians are working on economic statistics (macro-economics, trade, national accounts, and consumer price indices), and only one staff is in-charge of social statistics (including population census). The current work allocation leaves no room for a specialist to work on natural resources sector and environment statistics, governance and justice, and infrastructure and communication, key development areas in the Agenda 2030 on Sustainable Development, which the FSM Government subscribed to.

The current staffing pattern in the Statistics Division is well in line with Public Law 577 (Section 4:6), where in the context of mandating the then Office of Planning and Statistics to collect and compile data needed for the formulation of development plans and plan implementation, specific emphasis was placed on National Accounts, Prices, Trade, Government and household expenditure.

The development policy and associated plans in FSM today has a broader outlook than in the 1980s, with more attention given to social and environmental development challenges. Thus, this reinforces the need to review and update the statistics legislation as a top priority in the NSDS, in parallel with the revisit of the Division of Statistics’ current structure. The change in the statistics legislation and structure of the Division of Statistics will ensure it can adjust to growing and changing demands for statistics concerning both a wider range of statistics given Pacific Island Governments’ unanimous support for the Sustainable

3 The positions of Accounts Manager, who also handles all of Statis tics genera l adminis trative duties , and the Database-IT-Webmaster specia l i s t are both contract pos i tions .

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Development Goals (SDGs), as well as different types of statistical outputs, products, and means of data dissemination.

3.3.2 State statistical offices Being part of the Division of Statistics, R&D, all state statistical offices have two core functions: the collection and compilation of state level statistics across the broad spectrum of demographic, economic, social (education health) statistics, and also manage state operations of national statistical operations, such as population and agricultural censuses, household survey operation, price collections to name but a few. This work is mandated by FSM statistical legislation to provide this information to state governments, as well as feed it into the national system, where it is managed by the Division of Statistics.

The major constraint experienced by all state offices has been an overload with national collections in recent years, with back-to-back Household Income and Expenditure Surveys conducted in 2013-14 followed up almost immediately by FSM’s first agricultural census in 2016, the first since an earlier collection in 1969. While, the state statisticians recognize the value in such collections, their concern was primarily with activity management at national level, that tended to compromise other state-related statistical activities (e.g. producing statistical information for state users, for which they need to allocate time). For instance, in Kosrae and Yap, the revival of the annual state statistical yearbooks, which stopped since 2011, is a key priority; Pohnpei would like to publish regular statistical profiles on specific subjects with a focus on simple tables and graphics; and Chuuk is interested in regularly producing short thematic infographics on key state development concerns.

Another major constraint is the lack of state-disaggregated statistics in important policy domains, ranging from banking and investment data, to population projections, and specific economic statistics compiled by the Division of Statistics with data provided by the states, to be produced on a quarterly basis as demanded by the local business community, instead of yearly figures.

It is not clear whether this is a result of lack of time on the part of state statisticians to generate the statistics due to overload with national data collections or whether they are not able to access the data from state governments due to data sharing restrictions between state and national government, as previously mentioned in the common challenges within the NSS.

3.4. Challenges specific to sectoral agencies 3.4.1 Economic (Finance, Trade and Investment, Tourism) One major commonality shared by these three areas, is that they do not engage in statistical collections per se, but primarily compile raw data collected elsewhere, to undertake analysis in order to provide policy advice to Government.

Furthermore, as is the case in other sectors, staff resources are very thin on the ground, with perhaps the exception of Finance. Trade and Investment, as well Tourism are two units in the Department of Resources and Development (R&D), with just one professional staff assigned to each of these 3 domains which not only severely limits their professional capacity, but which might also be argued would not seem to befit the policy priority status accorded to these areas in the 2004-2023 FSM Strategic Plan, and the draft FSM Economic Development Roadmap, 2016.

Other significant constraints affecting their work, as has already been reflected in Part 2-1, refers to timeliness, that is, regularly late access to data required, as well as the datedness of much of the information required. This problem has also been highlighted by two recent IMF Article IV missions in 2012 and 2015, stressing the need “to improve the reliability, coverage, and timeliness of economic statistics, particularly in government finance and balance of payments statistics”.

All three also refer to major unmet data needs, essential to their work: information on remittances, and the inability to establish an accurate contribution of investments to GDP (Finance, Trade & Investment), and up-to-date visitor numbers from Division of Statistics and Immigration (Tourism). Their greatest

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frustration is knowing that these statistics are available, but not accessible, given ongoing state-federal agency data transfer challenges, staffing constraints, Division of Statistics not allowing to compile and publish some statistics (e.g. tourism figures) on a more frequent basis as requested by some users, and remittance data not accessible from money transfer agencies because of “confidentiality” issues. 3.4.2 Social (Education, Health, Gender) Of concern to both Departments of Education and Health and Social Affairs, is their ongoing inability to access up-to-date population statistics, with available data still referring to the 2010 census. They require current population estimates by age and sex to have realistic denominator data to calculate a variety of much needed rates and indicators. For example, school enrolment rates, and data on hospital attendance or medical treatment is essential information to both agencies not only to plan for future contingencies, but also because USCOMPACT funding allocations to these 2 sectors is based on having access to such data at the state level.

In addition to providing more realistic population numbers for national and state planning purposes and satisfying urgent domestic policy monitoring and reporting requirements, this information is also essential for regional and international policy monitoring regarding the SDG agenda and other international conventions the FSM has pledged to support.

While there is unanimous agreement that much of the required data is out there with state education, health and civil registration agencies, regular access is the key bottleneck for all: education cannot access population projections from the Division of Statistics (R&D) and birth statistics from states; Health has regular plans to visit states to compile statistics, but no funding to do so, and for Gender it is work-in progress. The comment by health, to “have plans but no funding to visit the states and collect the needed data themselves”, is a powerful illustration that not all is well with state-national data transfers as already highlighted earlier4.

A key challenge for the proposed review of the Statistics and Census Act 1988, will be identifying (i) which federal agency will be the “official source” of specific statistics, and hence will have the ultimate data release and dissemination responsibility, and in the case of primary data collection at state level, (ii) specify state-federal data transfer modalities.

And a key challenge for the formulation of the FSM-NSDS will be a well-articulated risk analysis that outlines concrete opportunity costs.

3.4.3 Natural Resources (Agriculture, Fisheries, R&D; National Oceanic Resource Management Authority, NORMA; Office of Environment and Emergency Management, OEED) The three agencies covering the Natural Resources sectors comprise of one Government Department, the Department of Resources and Development, and two National agencies, the National Oceanic Resource Management Authority (NORMA), and the Office of the Environment & Emergency Management (OEED).

As highlighted in the key findings derived from both cross-sectoral and individual agency assessments contained in Annex 1-e and 2-j, there is a big contrast in institutional mandates, capacity and overall infrastructure across this sector – the most visible and notable in terms of impact on performance related to resources allocation, particularly staffing.

4 Personal observation: From conversations with the Ass is tant Secretary, Divis ion of s tati s tics , and SPC CRVS specia l i s t, I understand that births and deaths data are transmitted regularly from the s tates to the national hea l th department, as was confi rmed during recent regional CRVS meetings. The most cri tical issue, according to Head of the Stati s tics Divis ion, i s “nobody seems to know the completeness of coverage at state level, and no qualitative checks being done at the time of data consolidation at national level”. With s tate health directors, having participated in recent CRVS meetings organized by SPC where data coverage and how to perform quality checks featured prominently on the agenda, good will and implementing agreements appear as a good way forward.

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• NORMA has some 20+ staff working across 3 operational units, whose entire work revolves around the collection and analysis of statistics on tuna, to enable a sustainable management of this resource.

• In contrast, the Agriculture and (Coastal) Fisheries units in R&D, have just 1 and 2 professional staff, and OEED’s Division of Environment and Sustainable Development has 4 staff, one of whom, its Sustainable Development Planner responsible for the agency’s statistical information needs.

Against this background, we cannot speak of key or common challenges across this sector, as NORMA has the resources it needs to do its job, concerning data collection, processing, database management, analysis and dissemination. Having said this, there are many common challenges experienced by R&D and OEED: applying SWOT analysis terminology, weaknesses in data collection/compilation, and many unmet data needs by R&D, with OEED lacking “all the data required to produce an Annual State of the Environment report”, as recommended by the South Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP), which limits both agencies’ capacity in terms of policy analysis, monitoring and reporting5. Personal Observation

Both NORMA and R&D share the view of the importance of having evidence-informed policy and plans, as well as having access to data for monitoring. The importance of statistics in the broadest sense, of having access to evidence is aptly illustrated in NORMA’s reference to it being “essential for the proper management of a key national resource: key to sustainable stock management, and real-time data are essential to monitor/ensure compliance with fishing license agreements. This being the sole purpose of NORMA’s existence, sets it apart from perhaps a more bureaucratic/administrative focus of governments in general, as in NORMA’s case, data and analytics are essential for its very existence and survival as an organization.

4. Review of FSM Statistical Legislation, Public Law No. 577 Background on the Law

To understand the functioning of FSM’s National Statistical System (NSS), its working and achievements, as well as current challenges and short-comings, it is imperative to complement this draft assessment with a brief review of the legal framework within which it operates, the focus of which is not of a legal nature, but to examine the extent to which the original purpose of the act and the overall functions and responsibilities accorded to the Division of Statistics remain valid and meaningful today, nearly 30 years after the legislation was first introduced6, specifically in terms of facilitating:

• statistical governance • effective coordination between various providers of statistics at federal and state levels across the

broad spectrum of the NSS • continuous and meaningful dialogue between data producers and users

Division of Statistics – its function and responsibilities While the articulation in Section 4 of the Act and outlined in 11 specific activities and outcomes remain as valid today as in 1988, administrative changes since, a considerable expansion in statistical outputs and data management (i.e., processes of data collection, analysis, reporting, dissemination and utilization), the use of micro-computers for data processing and storage, and a growing use of the internet and websites for data transfers and easy data access, suggest it may be timely after 30 years to test this legal framework’s fitness for purpose to facilitate and guide an effective and efficient working of the FSM National Statistical

5 The NSDS Strategic Planning workshop provides an opportunity to ascertain specific data needs across the natura l resources s tatistics spectrum, as wel l as additional monitoring requirements in this area perta ining to relevant SDG Goals 13 – 15. 6 This legislation was approved by the 5th Congress of Federated States of Micronesia at its 3rd regular session and s igned into law by Pres ident John. R Haglelgam, on 7 September, 1988.

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System. The following specific points would need to be considered in further reviewing and updating of the Statistics Act: • Statistical governance arrangements, as outlined in Section 2, are no longer valid, with the Division of

Statistics since having moved from the Office of Planning and Statistics (headed by a National Planner), to the Bureau of Commerce (SBOC), and more recently to the Department of Resources and Development, headed by a Secretary.

• While the Act provides for the Division of Statistics to coordinate the statistical work of all national Government Departments (Section 4-2), to avoid duplication in data collection, attain data compatibility, adhere to statistical standards and contribute to the maximum possible utilization of statistical data, it provides neither guidelines nor structure on how such coordination was to eventuate. Development of a specific set of implementing rules and regulations would tangibly strengthen a revised statistical legislation.

• On statistical content and focus, reference is made to the collection of statistics/data on economic, social and demographic matters (Section 4-4), with no mention of natural resources (Agriculture, Fisheries, Forestry) or the environment7, which is high on both current SIDS and International Development Agendas, as reflected in the S.A.M.O.A Pathway and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

It is worth noting that the following explicit provisions should be retained in the revised legislation: regarding

• statistical outputs, its reference to the preparation and publication of an annual statistical abstract for the FSM (Sec: 4-5)

• the policy relevance of statistics, when referring to the importance of statistical collections, to address data needed for the formulation of development plans and plan implementation (Sec: 4-6)

• the importance of, what today is referred to as regular data producer-user dialogues, to ensure government statistical data requirements are met, and also to provide a forum to identify statistical problems or difficulties experienced (Sec: 4-10)

• its provision of authority to the Division of Statistics to collect and compile statistics (Sec: 5), with a strong focus on economic statistics (Sec: 4-6) and the conduct of censuses and sample surveys (Sec: 6)

Notwithstanding the above explicit provisions, there is still a need to include a provision in the Act that would specify governance arrangements to facilitate these outputs and processes, and thus hold all actors, data producers and users at federal and state level accountable for their actions. And while the Act is explicit about the policy and development planning relevance and importance of statistics, the focus on purely economic data in this context (Sec: 6), and on censuses and surveys as methods of data collection needs to be updated to address both unmet statistical needs across many sectors, as well as other data collection systems. Focus on compliance and authority – instead of facilitation and collaboration

The Act does not include adequate provisions on compliance and facilitation as illustrated in Sections 5 to 14, which tend to focus more on restrictions, confidentiality, and fines and punishment for wrongful disclosure of information, refusal or neglect by individuals to provide census information, and for businesses failing to provide required business data.

However, there are two areas that ought to be retained in a revised legislation – with an update on the Division of Statistics change of status, as they provide a solid foundation to advance statistical development in the FSM, with the NSDS providing both context and legitimacy: • the Act’s acknowledgement of statistical information needs by other Government departments, and

thus authorizing these to conduct their own statistical surveys, subject to informing the National Planner and the Division of Statistics of such intentions (Sec: 10)

7 Cl imate change was not yet on the pol i tica l and s tatis tica l agenda in 1988.

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• the Act’s authorizing an exchange of data, involving the Division of Statistics and any state or national Government department or agency (Sec: 11)

Both acknowledge the existence of a national statistical system (NSS), with the national statistics office, the Division of Statistics in the case of the FSM, playing a central, but not the only role. And both reveal good intentions, yet without any clear guidance of how to most effectively and efficiently implement these intentions. And it is here, where the development of an NSDS, in tandem with a review of Public Law 577, are indispensable to put FSM statistical development on firm foundations, and where evidence-informed policy development and planning, regular monitoring of development progress and accounting for results become standard operating practice. Most compelling arguments for urgent review of FSM statistical legislation, Public Law 577 The fact that FSM’s statistical legislation is nearly 30 years old, is by itself no valid argument for review, having pre-dated all major national statistical collections since gaining its independence from the United States on 3 November 1986: its first national census in 1994, followed by national counts in 2000 and 2010. Prior to 1988, census taking was a state matter, with both Pohnpei (1985) and Kosrae (1986) undertaking their last state census just prior to independence, followed by Yap (1987) and Chuuk (1989).

More compelling are substantial changes that have taken place since 1988, for which this legislation is no longer relevant:

• Given the recent changes in the government structures where statistical responsibility lies, there is an urgent need to revisit and update the statistics legislation in order to ensure validity of the mandate.

• In terms of statistical data and information management, the current legislation predates the rapid development in ICT in the past 30 years, and as such related provisions are no longer suited to handle matters across the broad spectrum of electronic data management and security such as computing, electronic data capture, web-based data access, cloud-data storage, among others.

• Statistical production and data management across the FSM NSS faces some daunting challenges given the complex federal-state arrangements pertaining to collections and data transfers, which are not adequately addressed under current law. While FSM’s four state statisticians are staff of the National Division of Statistics, most of their colleagues operating at state level, and from which they are required to collect state-level sectoral statistics (e.g. health, education), are state officials, and Public Law 577 lacks information relevant to managing state-national statistical data transfers effectively and with efficiency, other than a vague reference to “promote cooperation between national state governments with respect to the improvement of recording and reporting of statistics in the FSM (Sec: 3-4).

• The Public Law 577 contains provisions that points to statistical coordination and collaboration in the FSM NSS. However, it is more focused on prescription, enforcement and fines, rather than on facilitation (and opportunities). The Statistics Act needs to have accompanying guidelines that would specify governance arrangements and accountability in the FSM NSS.

• The Division of Statistics’ collection mandate focuses on economic, social and demographic matters; there is no mention of natural resources, the environment, or climate change. Considering that the Agriculture/Forestry and Coastal Fisheries teams in R & D do not have a statistical collection function or capability, and with the same applying also to the Office of Environment and Emergency Management, the regular collection of such statistics under current legislation has neither a home nor mandate to do so. Redressing this situation is imperative in both an updated statistical legislation, as well in the design of the FSM NSDS, particular with the FSM Governments, as all Governments in the region, have pledged their commitment to the United Nations 2030 Development Agenda, the Sustainable Development Goals, which poses massive data collection and management challenges for the FSM NSS, with most statistics and indicators required not yet collected by most countries. The magnitude of this challenge for the FSM, will become known, once current SDG Indicator availability assessment has been completed.

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• Another worthwhile outcome of reviewing and updating FSM’s statistical legislation is to give emphasis and clarity on vertical and horizontal statistical coordination between national and state agencies and across agencies both at national and state levels. Firm provisions could be laid down in the law to ensure better and consistent differentiation between statistical collections and compilations and to clarify roles, functions and responsibilities of national and state statistical agencies as well as those of non-statistical agencies (at national and local levels) when it concerns data. This would address current confusion on who has the mandate to collect and disseminate data. For example, on the reference to the Division of Statistics’ collection mandate regarding social statistics (i.e., education and health), which is the joint responsibility of the state education and health departments, which are then compiled by the national education and health departments. Considering that state statisticians, also compile this same information from their state offices and submit to the national Division of Statistics, there is clearly an opportunity for less duplication and better coordination under a revised statistical legislation.

• Considering that education and health attract the lion share of FSM and state Government recurrent budget allocations, and attract two-thirds of US Compact funding, it is important the both government agencies are accorded specific legal provision for data collection in a revised statistical legislation.

• And a final tangible improvement to FSM’s statistical legislation would be to expand the exclusive focus on census and surveys on other data sources and associated means of data collection and compilations, such as administrative databases and associated information management systems. The Statistics Act does not include provision for using other sources of data such as administrative data systems and information management systems maintained by other agencies outside the Statistics Division, such as those pertaining to the collection of migration, education, health and vital statistics, for example.

5. Summary of Recommendations The preceding discussion on findings from the NSS assessment process identified several common challenges experienced across the National Statistical System, referred to by data producers and users alike as negatively impacting on their work. Addressing these issues is a matter of urgency to improve data collection, as well as the production, dissemination and use of statistical information to ensure that principal objectives can be accomplished: to compile quality statistics and produce statistical information in a timely manner and on a regular basis; to address information needs of multiple users comprising of government, the private sector, civil society and development partners; to provide the foundation of evidence-informed decisions, policies and plans to address the development aspirations of its people.

While some recommendations have been explicitly referred to by participants of the assessment process as illustrated in the agencies and sector assessment summaries in Annexes 3 and 4, others are based on the consultant’s interpretations of the various assessment discussions. Either way, this summary is a draft to be validated by government and national agencies’ staff at the upcoming NSDS strategic planning workshop, and will provide the foundation to establish key strategic objectives for the FSM National Strategy for the Development of Statistics. Institutional Challenges – Statistics and Census Act, Public Law 5-77 (1988) Recommendation-1: To review and update this current statistical legislation as a matter of urgency, taking into account major developments that have taken place over the past 30 years, such as, but not restricted to:

(i) administrative changes governing statistics, and while recognizing the central role of the Division of Statistics, acknowledge the emergence of a national statistical system with data collected and produced by various state and federal bodies which requires greater clarity about their respective roles, functions and responsibilities

(ii) the emergence of micro-computers, tablets and cell-phones used for data collection, transfer, storage and dissemination

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(iii) the unique challenges of state-federal data transfer requirements

(iv) a somewhat narrow focus on economic and social statistics which remains important, but is no longer the sole focus of government policy concerns, with natural resources management, the environment and climate change becoming more pressing development priorities, and whose statistical needs ought to be explicitly recognised

(v) the need to perhaps focus less on prescriptions, enforcement and fines, and more on statistical coordination and collaboration, with clear recommendations on governance arrangements and accountability

(vi) recognize the growing importance of administrative databases and associated management information systems, which hardly merited attention in the current law, including registries and perhaps more private sector statistics in the future

Common statistical challenges across all sectors

1. Data flows from state to federal agencies Recommendation-2: With timeliness referred to as one of two major constraints experienced by national counterparts to have regular access to state statistics to aggregate these into national statistics, ensure the revised statistical legislation contains guidelines on how to regularize these state-federal data transfers.

Recommendation-3: With incomplete state data seen as the second major constraint, empower the Division of Statistics, R&D to develop data-integrity checks, to be implemented at state agency level, and signed off by the state statisticians as complete, before such data are transferred to the Division of Statistics, for national aggregation.

2. Outdated means of data dissemination Recommendation-4: State statistical agencies to develop websites for state data storage, to facilitate easy data access by federal counterpart agencies.

Challenges specific to the Division of Statistics – headquarter and state agencies Recommendation-5: Address the severe understaffing of the Division of Statistics as a matter of urgency, which currently has just one Statistics Specialist position attending to social statistics, including having primary responsibility for Population censuses and CSPro data processing, and no designated staff with dedicated responsibility/technical expertise for natural resources statistics, including the environment and climate change – two pressing national, regional and international policy concerns, requiring an urgent attention to the collection and compilation of core statistics and indicators. Recommendation-6: Consider redressing the current staffing imbalance at state level, with 2 staff in the Kosrae office which has to undertake the same statistical work-load as staff in the other three states.

Recommendation-7: The revised statistical legislation to contain specific guidelines for the Division of Statistics and its four state statistical units to produce an agreed-upon core set of national and state statistics and summary reports on a regular basis (to be determined), with all parties required to produce a National/State Statistical Digest every two years. To allow this to happen, ensure processes are put in place to strike a better balance than at present, between data collection and dissemination.

Recommendation-8: Address pressing data gaps at state level, such as producing and publishing state-disaggregated (i) population statistics and estimates to allow for adequate forecasting of service demands particularly in the education and health sectors, and (ii) regarding some economic statistics compiled at national level, which local business sectors require at state level, and preferably on a quarterly basis.

Challenges specific to sectoral agencies

1. Economic Sector

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Recommendation-9: Although not specifically related to statistics per se, it might be prudent to address staff shortages in key government business/policy priority areas. With four key policy priority areas under the 2023 FSM Action Plan located in the Department of Resources and Development’s Resource Management and Development Division each handled by one single officer (Agriculture, Tourism, Trade, Investment), it is a big ask for these staff to maintain an effective and efficient balance between policy analysis, planning and ensuring they have the data and statistical information at hand to do their job. With the Department’s Statistics Division already stretched to the limit, consideration might be given to have some dedicated data and analytics resources allocated to the Division of Resource Management and Development, working closely with the Statistics Division.

Recommendation-10: Both departments consulted, expressed their ongoing frustration of not being able to access statistical data important to their work which they know is available, due to matters of “confidentiality”: information on remittances, investment figures to establish an accurate contribution of investments to GDP, and up-to-date visitor numbers, with more specific attention to be paid to tourists – all of which could be readily addressed in a revised Statistics Act (see Recommendation-1).

2. Social Sector Two major constraints in the form of data gaps, and how to address these, such as access to up-to-date population estimates, and regular access to vital statistics (births and deaths) have already been touched upon in Recommendation-1 (i, iii) and Recommendation-8. 3. Natural Resources No common constraint emerged, with NORMA having access to most things related to data collection, analytical capacity and information management, with Agriculture and Fisheries, R&D experiencing continued unmet data needs (although the 2016 Ag census report, once available, should redress this situation somewhat), and OEED lacking all data required to produce a standard State of the Environment report. Recommendation-11: With these challenges and constraints already addressed in Recommendation-1 (iv), and Recommendation-9 regarding statistical capacity constraints in the Department of Resources and Development, current policy importance accorded to this sector ought to be explicitly recognised in the form of dedicated staff capacity in OEED, to look after data and information requirements pertaining to environment and climate change.

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ANNEXES

Annex 1: Pacific NSS Assessment Template

http://bit.ly/2snN9yJ

Annex 2: Agencies and staff consulted

http://bit.ly/2tsueSG

Annex 3: Sector assessment – Summary of Key Findings

http://bit.ly/2snKUeE

Annex 4: Individual Agency assessments

http://bit.ly/2trk8Sv