Good practices in monitoring and reporting on the Millennium Development Goals: National lessons from Latin America

Includes bibliography

The status of millennium development goals: monitoring and reporting in selected Caribbean countries

In spite of various initiatives, Caribbean countries continue to have difficulties in addressing demands of monitoring and measuring progress towards the fulfilment of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and other Internationally Agreed upon Development Goals (IADGs)1. To address this gap, the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) has received funding for a technical assistance project, Strengthening the capacity of National Statistical Offices (NSOs) in the Caribbean Small Island Developing States to fulfil the Millennium Development Goals and other Internationally Agreed Development Goals (IADGs). The main imperative of the project is to support the strengthening of national institutional capabilities for generating reliable data to meet these monitoring and reporting requirements. The project seeks to build on past and current initiatives directed towards broadening and improving statistics and indicators through the use of already available knowledge, experience and expertise at the national and regional level. In an effort to avoid duplication of present or repetition of past activities in this field, ECLAC considered it important to conduct a thorough assessment of the status and structure of MDG and IADG monitoring and reporting at the national and regional levels as well as to provide an overview of initiatives undertaken by other regional development partners and intergovernmental bodies in the subregion. This paper is composed as follows: The first chapter of the document will present an overview of the statistical infrastructure at the national level, followed by a summary of the results of a survey administered to Caribbean NSOs that gathered information on the status of and mechanisms in place in MDG and IADG monitoring and reporting at the national level. Then, an attempt will be made to provide a briefing on activities carried out by intergovernmental bodies and development partners in the region. The fourth section presents a brief summary of data sources for secondary data and introduces concepts for metadata collection and reporting. It further discusses major challenges with poverty measurements and monitoring in the subregion. The paper ends with a summary and recommendations for the way forward.

Questionnaire and survey methodology. Saint Lucia: Survey of living condition and household budgets 2005/2006

This manual documents some of the material related to the Survey of Living Conditions and Household Budgets (SLC/HBS) conducted in Saint Lucia by the Kairi Consultants Limited and National Assessment Team between 2005 and 2006. The SLC/HBS is a sample survey which generates data on households and individuals in the country. The main objectives of this survey were (i) to collect information from households on their expenditure patterns, income and other characteristics and; (ii) to revise the 'average shopping basket' used in constructing the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for the country, and the relative weights of the items in the basket. The survey also provided valuable data for an assessment of the impact of socio-economic policies on the living conditions of the resident population in Saint Lucia. Further, data on households gathered in the survey also provide valuable inputs for the compilation of the country's National Accounts statistics relating to the household sector. This manual was developed by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) – Subregional Headquarters in the Caribbean as a supplementary document for the Caribbean Household Surveys Database (CHSD). The main components of this manual include survey methodology and the questionnaires used for data collection. The latter are included in the annex at the end of the document. All information contained therein was provided by the Statistics Department in Saint Lucia. The ECLAC Subregional Headquarters for the Caribbean is pleased to acknowledge the Saint Lucia Statistics Department for graciously consenting to the use of their surveys and metadata under the project Improving Caribbean Household Surveys. Due recognition must also be given to the Statistics and Economics Projection Division at ECLAC (Santiago) who provided guidance in the standardization of the datasets and the creation of the Caribbean Household Surveys Databank.