“ Bilateral and multilateral cooperation in statistics contributes to the improvement of systems of official statistics in all countries. „
“Many hands make light work”, so the saying goes. And working together doesn’t just mean that things get done more quickly and cost-effectively; it can result in unique impacts that are greater than the sum of their parts.
The very existence of the United Nations is anchored in the conviction expressed in the Charter of the United Nations that we can “unite our strength” and “combine our efforts” to achieve goals beyond the capabilities of individual countries.
International cooperation in official statistics takes many forms. Countries work together to share what they’ve learned as they develop new ways to produce and publish statistics. With just one statistical system in each country, international exchange is crucial for statistical offices to learn, share and stay on top of their game. The hundreds of working groups convened by UNECE’s Conference of European Statisticians, the UN Statistics Division, Eurostat, OECD, regional statistical bodies in the UN and elsewhere, help countries to share what they experience and develop so others can benefit from it. This sharing happens in every aspect of statistics, from organizational management to how surveys are run, how statistics are calculated from raw data, and how results are published. Facilitated by international organizations such as UNECE, countries share everything from the code for their data editing software to the text of their statistical laws, and from the design of their census questionnaires to the job descriptions for hiring new staff.
International cooperation is not just about individual countries sharing their experiences. It’s also about working together to design and agree on things collectively: often cutting-edge new ideas which need the benefit of many points of view to make them work. As principle 9 showed, shared international standards are uniquely valuable. International groups working together can develop them based on the diverse views and priorities, so that the agreements they reach and the tools they develop are valuable for all.
International organizations and individual countries help one-another bilaterally too, by giving training to reinforce the skills and knowledge of staff in NSOs; by undertaking study visits; and by conducting independent external assessments of each other’s work.
International statistics bodies such as the Conference of European Statisticians and its global counterpart, the United Nations Statistical Commission, have formal processes for selecting topics to work on; establishing groups of experts to conduct the work; and endorsing the results. This formality isn’t just for show. Having been selected, consulted, revised and only finally endorsed when there is unanimous agreement, everything produced by these bodies enjoys a special status underpinned by the United Nations.
A rising tide of misinformation and disinformation can only be met by a united front of strong, independent, principle-bound providers of evidence. The Fundamental Principles themselves are the clearest illustration of the power of the collective—they arose as a result of countries working together. The passion they continue to spark among statisticians everywhere, witnessed during this 30th anniversary campaign, is testament to the continued truth that in statistics as in all things, nations are stronger together.
Interview with Mr. Ilie Dumitrescu, director of the NIS President Cabinet and one of the “founders” of the Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics originally published on the NIS website in three parts: (part 1); (part 2); (part 3).
Mr. Ilie Dumitrescu graduated from the Institute of Economics and Statistics, Romania, and since then he has built up more than 50 years of experience as a statistician working with official statistics. He has been involved in practically all fields of economic and social statistics, among which his areas of particular excellence are: institutional structures related to statistics; legal frameworks; Fundamental Principles and the European Code of practice; quality management in statistics; EU legislation in agriculture statistics and other related fields; population and social statistics; international relations.
He has been involved in various projects of technical assistance in Ukraine, the Republic of Moldova, Armenia, Georgia, North Macedonia, etc., thanks to his in- depth knowledge of assessing third country legislation and institutional arrangements for compliance with EU standards. He was among the “founders” of the Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics. He was a short term Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) expert assisting national institutes of statistics from various countries in reorganizing their agriculture statistics and implementing statistical surveys in this field. For three years he was working in Vilnius, Lithuania for the Programme Coordination Unit in charge of observing the monitoring and reporting on the PHARE Statistical Cooperation Programme.
A member of the International Statistical Institute, he is author of numerous published articles.
Question: Mr. Dumitrescu, as far as I know, you are one of the Romanian statistics representatives who have a long history of participating in the proceedings of the Conference of European Statisticians, covering both the time before the 1990s and the period subsequent to the 1990s. The characteristics of each of the two periods, beyond the political considerations, from a statistical point of view, consist of the fact that before the 1990s, in the Conference debates, two almost completely different approaches collided: one belonged to the delegations of the countries that promoted the centrally-planned economic system, where we were also included, and the other was that of Western countries, with their market economies.
The first approach was dominated by the presentation and promotion of statistical concepts, methods and techniques that were subordinate to the material production system, whereas, with the second approach, the focus was on official statistics that are public, organized and operated based on democratic values (which are characteristic of the market economy) and that are oriented towards all categories of statistical data users.
The question we are asking you is the following: in your opinion, considering that the two systems were conceptually separated by distinct if not divergent interests, how could they function in a common framework?
Mr. Ilie Dumitrescu: The documents that were subject to debates in the annual sessions of the Conference and in the working groups were designed and drawn up so as to avoid going into political details or taking controversial stands on principle-related issues, each side being allowed to express its points of view in accordance with its own considerations and options.
The common elements that, nevertheless, aroused general interest, consisted almost exclusively of technical statistical approaches, statistical methods, the basic definitions of indicators, classifications etc. The field with the largest amount of discrepancies between the two systems, if we look at the phases of the statistical process, was that concerning the dissemination of the results of the work done by statisticians in the framework of official statistics. While, in general, the debates promoted by the former planned-economy countries, as they used to be called, expressed the view that statistics should almost exclusively serve the interests and purposes of government bodies (I am particularly speaking on behalf of the Romanian delegation), the ones promoted by the delegations of Western countries insisted on the need for statistics to serve the entire society, namely all the categories of statistical data users, and even to be generated by their opinions.
The final results of each session, working group etc., which were recorded in the reports on the debates, generally reflected the points all participants’ positions had in common and, separately, without making critical or appreciative remarks, each of the two views of the statistical system. Therefore, it was naturally understood that opinions differed depending on the economic policy constraints upon which these views were based.
Worthy of mention is, however, the fact that a sense of cooperative relations prevailed, whose ethical component was characterized by understanding and mutual respect.
Of course, we realize the issues discussed from 1953 (when the Conference of European Statisticians was founded) to 1989 revealed numerous specific problems that you do not wish to dwell on. But ever since 1990, the issue of unifying the statistical approaches under one common framework in compliance with the democratic principles has naturally been raised, a framework which has turned into a common paradigm both for former communist countries and for traditionally democratic countries.
Under these circumstances, how was it possible to think of a common framework and to create such a framework, which sets out general principles on the functioning of the statistical system, to be applied by all countries?
Mr. Ilie Dumitrescu: This issue was discussed as early as 1990, a year that marked the change of political regimes in the former socialist countries through their shift to democracy. Thus, at the 38th session of the Conference of European Statisticians, a decision was adopted, where it was stated that in all countries and particularly in transition countries, Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics, to be applied by all, needed to be prepared and institutionalized.
Moreover, in the meetings that followed, the Polish delegation led by Josef Olenski proposed a detailed project, drawing up a set of principles, based on duly justified reasons and criteria. Naturally, a broad debate ensued. Not everything went smoothly, without impediments, in their attempt to reach common ground. In fact, I would say that, sometimes, heated discussions took place. Some delegations of Western countries even thought that the institutionalization of general principles and rules was not absolutely necessary, because the democratic system itself involved the functioning of these principles without restrictions, arguing that in their countries such principles were automatically observed. Obviously, such points of view revolved around the notion of “statistical independence”.
The former communist countries were the ones to insist on the implementation of the set of principles and values. This was in order not so much to convince the statisticians in their own countries, since this was fully in agreement with their interests, as to convince political authorities and make them commit to such principles as regards official statistics. This was needed considering the fact that, up to that point, as part of the bodies that existed before democracy set in, they were very determined to impose their dictatorial views, which were subordinate to political precepts, in all fields, including statistics.
I would particularly like to add that, as the purpose it was assigned to serve was to monitor and reveal the implementation of the economic development plan, statistics, at least in Romania’s case, had to adapt to the plan-based methodology in terms of concepts and even techniques and rules, and not the other way around. As statistics was oriented towards implementing the development plans and almost inherently exceeding the expected results, in the framework of improving the plan-based methodology, various activities and plan-related standards – which were supposed to be better than the old ones – were identified. This was done in an attempt to generate surplus as far as the statistical assessment of the results of economic activities was concerned.
Based on your own activity, can you mention any specific aspects that caused difficulties in the national implementation of the Fundamental Principles or, on the contrary, that facilitated the commitment of society and implicitly of decision makers to these principles?
Mr. Ilie Dumitrescu: That is an interesting question. I have kept this to myself for many years, but I am glad I am able to talk about it today, for the first time. Not only in Romania but in many other countries as well, to the best of my knowledge, official statistics is administratively managed by the Government, the Prime Minister, a ministry etc., mainly with a view to securing the opportunities to support the interests of statistics through such representatives, particularly when it comes to ensuring resources. This mechanism was in place before 1990 and it still is. I mentioned before that the role of these leaders and even of broader (let’s say public) decision-making areas was well defined, which meant that statistics was used as a political tool. Nowadays, the role of such a leader, as we all perceive it, is rather formal, with the chief aim being the provision of support and definitely not the option to interfere in the internal matters of statistics, from professional independence to the management of and involvement in the statistical methods/techniques and the mean or manners of disseminating statistical data. The generalization of principles and, particularly, the process of convincing political authorities to commit to and observe them took quite a long time. In our case, a change of mentality for some of the political leaders who were under the protective umbrella of a “facelift” was necessary.
During the early stages of transition, such a co-ordinator of statistics with rank of minister asked the person who was the head of statistics at the time to provide him with a written presentation on the role of the statistical office of the EU, a brief description of the CV of the Eurostat Director-General and, implicitly, to the extent possible, his views of national official statistics.
The NIS president gave me the task of preparing such a document, which was to be handed over to the co-ordinator, who was going to visit Eurostat.
The co-ordinator – there is no point in mentioning his name – was shocked by the fact that Eurostat in general and its Director-General in particular, Yves Franchet, firmly believed in and acted to ensure the observance of the principles on the functioning of official statistics in the context of a democratic society (implicitly, that was also the case of our society), with the basic components of these principles being the respect for professional independence and the non-interference of politics in the main tasks of statistics.
The shock was vehemently followed by actions condemning the very essence of such “precepts”, as the co-ordinator saw no reason why his influence and his direct involvement in statistical governance could not be possible. Moreover, he requested that I be downgraded from my position and moved to a territorial statistical directorate for disciplinary reasons. It was only through the intervention of personalities from the academic world that things got back to normal. They proved that such a measure and other similar measures on the part of the co-ordinator mentioned above were meant to reinstate the old standards that did not fit the democratic statistics to which Romania had subscribed.
United Nations Economic Commission for Europe
Palais des Nations, Geneva
