The UNFPA Country Support Team for the South Pacific, based in Suva, Fiji, is one of eight regional technical support teams established by the United Nations Population Fund to provide countries with technical backstopping to meet country needs in the population field. In fulfilling this function, apart from field missions, the Country Support Team aims to foster active communication and open discussion with national experts to promote a more holistic approach to population programmes.

This Discussion Papers series has been initiated by the CST (Suva) in an attempt to establish a dialogue among national population programme personnel on the integrated and coordinated multidisciplinary approach to population. Hence, CST Discussion Papers are not particularly addressed to academic audiences but to practitioners.

In this paper, Mr Laurie Lewis traces some recent changes in the direction in which the development of population statistics is moving. In particular, he reviews the impact the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development is likely to have on national statistical offices and on the technical backstopping role of the UNFPA/CST. Many of the questions he raises, for example on the sporadic nature of progress in data processing, or the need for far greater regional cooperation in future population censuses, we hope will be sufficiently provocative to open up much needed debate.

29 December 1995

1. Background

This paper is based on a presentation I made recently at a UNFPA global workshop on the collection, dissemination and uses of data. From the global perspective, the Pacific islands are characterised almost entirely by their smallness and isolation.

While none can deny the importance of these characteristics to an understanding of the Pacific island societies, the image itself can hinder a closer look at how these same societies function, politically, culturally, socially, economically and so on, an essential task in a proper appreciation of national data and information needs. The more surprising characteristic that emerges from a closer perspective is the wide diversity that exists between the different island communities, so much so that I found it difficult to address particular issues in data collection, dissemination and use as though they related to a place called "the Pacific". It is sometimes useful therefore to adopt the broad ethnographic distinctions between the Melanesian, Micronesian, and Polynesian peoples, especially since the grouping of countries in this way enables quite remarkable differences in statistical development and needs to be identified.

A related point is that remoteness and smallness are to some minds necessarily associated with backwardness. While there is no doubt that the association holds as a general truth, it is important to recognize in its diversity that the more advanced Pacific island countries can in some respects be considered alongside the more statistically progressive developing countries in the Asia-Pacific region. But the most disadvantaged of the island states would clearly be ranked near the lowest rungs in the global ladder on statistical development.

A consideration of the issues in data collection must take account of the uniqueness of the region. I have tried therefore, in this brief presentation, to "think aloud" about the implications for support for data collection in the Pacific, in particular the new orientation envisaged in the report of the Executive Director on programme priorities and future directions of UNFPA in light of the ICPD, distributed recently. ¹

2. Population Data Collection in the Pacific

For the majority of Pacific island countries recorded history is short and verifiable factual records date back only to the last century. Much of what is now claimed as historic, is a colourful blending of myth and reality, touched up skilfully by artists in oral tradition.

The earliest estimates of population and growth in the region are probably those based on reports of the various traders, missionaries and explorers visiting the Polynesian islands in the 1820s and 1830s. But the estimates are crude with considerable ambiguity on exactly who was meant to be included. For much of Micronesia early estimates depend to an even greater extent on guesswork; the first reliable figures are those compiled by the administering German authorities towards the turn of this century and by the Japanese who followed. An even later start to data collection was made in Melanesia, particularly Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu, where civil registration was never really established and population censuses are of comparatively recent origin. In the absence of alternative sources of information, it should not be forgotten that these early sources were invaluable in providing almost the only insights into the populations of the Pacific islands.

Against this backdrop, the support of the UNFPA in developing the fledgling national statistical systems needs to be seen. For two or three decades after the second world war, just about all Pacific island countries conducted national censuses, in several cases the first ever. During the early period, funding was provided by the colonizing powers, but as independence came to the Pacific, countries found it increasingly necessary to shop around for assistance. The history of population statistics has thus been fashioned by these grander changes. Micronesian censuses since the departure of the Japanese have been largely conducted as part of the US census of its Trust Territories, which, since independence under the various compacts with the US government, have turned increasingly to the UNFPA and regional agencies for support. In much of Polynesia, countries have conducted censuses since the War with the assistance of universities and researchers in Australia, New Zealand, the United States and elsewhere. In most instances the early post-war censuses were processed overseas. In Melanesia the story of ad hoc and discordant censuses was also evident. In 1966 and 1971, the first ever population censuses conducted in Papua New Guinea, Australian assistance was provided. In Vanuatu the first ever census in 1967 was supported by the British and French with technical and processing assistance from the Australian National University. The 1979 census was again in various stages supported by the British and French, but as independence arrived and the task seemed largely abandoned, it was the UN who came to assist.

From the mid-1970s, with patchy histories of census-taking behind them, countries moved quickly to establish national statistical services and to request support from UNFPA, ESCAP, SPC and other agencies in the field, in conducting the regular population censuses and, through such support, in developing national capacities. In the last full round of censuses, conducted between 1986 and 1991, very few of the countries were not supported in some way by UNFPA.

While progress in population censuses has been rapid, and most countries can boast good recent records, the situation for civil registration remains weak. Among the countries covered by the CST Suva, only the Cook Islands, Nauru, Tuvalu and Niue can claim complete or near-complete coverage in their registration systems; yet none of these countries has a population in excess of 20,000 persons. Fiji and Tonga maintain reasonably high coverage levels. In none of the other nine countries is coverage sufficiently high to safely use civil registration to estimate vital statistics. Indeed, in the Melanesian countries, with the notable exception of Fiji, civil registration is virtually non-existent, although legal provision is in place.

3. Data Processing: Hitchhiking on the Information Super Highway

The revolution in processing technology seems heaven-sent to the Pacific island countries. "Smaller", " robust", "cheaper", some of the adjectives used to describe each generation of desk-top PCS, seem uncannily focused on the special problems of the Pacific. And indeed, for a while at least, the statistical offices were on a kind of joyride. Moving from a situation in the early 1980s, in which few countries could boast their own data processing processing facilities, to the situation a decade later in which every statistical office was using computers in a variety of applications; one is tempted to argue that the revolution has not by-passed the Pacific.

Closer examination takes some of the rosiness from the picture. It was inevitable that the more developed countries would be better placed to exploit the new technologies, to reach the moon, to design airports or to diagnose the sick.

In the statistical offices, applications beyond the most essential were hardly appropriate for the island countries. True, in more advanced statistical offices outside the region, new and exciting computer-assisted applications were being used, including interviewing, coding, sampling, quality control, publishing and automatic data transmission, but there were clear constraints to their extension to the Pacific.

The reasons are worth dwelling upon, since I am arguing that the relative situation today is worse in many of the countries than it was five years ago. For the smaller countries, part of the difficulty lies in the lack of depth and rapid turnover in the statistical staff (although the presence of a single staff member with an aptitude in computing has led paradoxically to a better situation in some of the smallest countries than elsewhere). A more important reason has been the dependence that the development of computing software has created on the expertise of the marketers. Two points have emerged: first, the PICs are too small to assert much influence over the marketplace; countries cannot afford to pay for the expertise required to keep the new systems running. As hitchhikers along the information superhighway, the small island countries are often left stranded awaiting someone to offer a ride.

An inability to make long-term plans is linked to this dependence and difficulties in the training of national staff. But national training too has proven more illusive than it once seemed. It is not that there are insufficient courses on offer or that Pacific islanders perform poorly, although this might once have been the case. But the choice of courses offered by, say, SIAP, the SPC, the universities or the UN system are not always well-suited to the needs of the Pacific. Even where the choice is appropriate, however, it is rare that a participant can return home and introduce an application without further assistance. The absence of supporting data processing environments at home therefore serves to slow the real transfer of technology.

The situation in the Pacific is thus too often a mere reflection on the progress that was being made five years ago. Hardware equipment is dated or worse broken-down and could hardly support new applications even if they were available. Staff have received training in a variety of packages but few are sufficiently familiar to make decisions about what will be used and to run in-house training sessions for national statisticians.

Problems of another kind exist in the very largest of the Pacific countries, Fiji and Papua New Guinea, more akin to the larger countries of the Asian region. In the conduct of the last census in these two countries, and no doubt in the planning of the next, data processing is the responsibility of a specialised computing unit, in the case of Papua New Guinea within the National Statistical Office, and of Fiji, outside of the Bureau of Statistics. Most of the data processing is on mainframe. There has been a marked reluctance in these units to adopt PC-based technologies or to provide support for development of desktop facilities in the subject-matter areas. In terms solely of producing census and population survey results, they have managed after a fashion to produce tabulations, though not always using the specialised PC software packages now familiar to statistical offices. My main concern with this kind of organization is that it has failed to establish an effective user service, sensitive and responsive to the needs of planners and other users. I shall return to this point.

4. Dissemination and Uses of Population Data

In earlier censuses it was rare for more than a single census report to be published. For users the Census Report marked the end of the census, especially if the census was processed overseas, since even if they existed there was no easy way to respond to demands for additional information. Often the Census Report itself was hardly designed to be understood and used by national planners. A widespread practice was to appoint an external consultant from a university to produce a so-called demographic analysis of the census. Despite the high expense of national censuses, data were as a consequence rarely used within the country. It was hardly surprising that in the reviews of statistical services in the Pacific in which I participated in the 1980s, a common theme was the poor standing of the National Statistical Offices in the national communities.

Part of the problem was that statisticians assumed too readily that users knew exactly what they wanted or that they would be happy with whatever was provided. In the longer run both assumptions have proven to be blatantly false. Users were not always in a position to articulate their needs nor did they know what was potentially available from the census, or indeed from any other source. But nor were they necessarily happy with the limited and tardy reports they were given. Recent years have witnessed a marked improvement in the arrangements for meeting users needs. More than lip service is paid to the importance of soliciting the views of users on census and survey discussion panels, although in the case of censuses, it is also clear that the statistical office does not have wide scope to incorporate additional topics suggested by users.

The greater change in statistical behaviour during the past few years has been in the encouragement of potential users to seek additional census data. While the situation is much improved there is still far to go. Several developments are worth noting:

• As data are processed in-country a wider range of releases and reports are made available from the census
• Reports are more attractive and relevant to users
• More special tabulations are produced in response to requests from users
• More frequent informal consultations are held between users and producers
• More formal data dissemination and use workshops are conducted.

5. Has the CST Made a Difference?

So far, I have pointedly restricted my comments on the situation in the Pacific, to the conventional sources of population data, national population censuses and civil registration. So long as this rather narrow view is taken on how needs of users are to be met, it is difficult to argue that the very solid support provided by UNFPA in the last decade can be maintained. The effectiveness of the CST is thus constrained in that the expectations for continuing financial support from UNFPA will not necessarily be met and an effective role for the CST will need to evolve in the changing circumstances.

Fortunately, the CST is already being asked to take a wider perspective on the conceptualization and construction of population information systems and there are early signs that it is making a positive impact in the real world. Much of the early momentum for this change was generated by the needs of the UN and other donors, but there is no doubt that the process of thinking anew about data needs is penetrating the higher levels of government.

The process owes much to the development-focused rationalization occurring within the UN system and specialized agencies. UNFPA, the regional commissions, UNDP, among others, have shifted from the pursuit of narrow, delimited and mutually exclusive objectives towards more thematic, broad-based and overlapping reformulations of goals. Moves toward the refinement of the UNFPA mission, particularly since the ICPD, but in many ways starting with the restructuring of its technical services, has been very timely and positions the CST well to respond to changing needs.

The best example of how these overlapping agency objectives give prominence to the CST is provided by the Sustainable Human Development initiative of the UNDP. The broadening of the goals of development, beyond the unbridled pursuit of economic growth, to incorporate the full spectrum of factors that bear on the quality of life - social, demographic, cultural and political - sits comfortably with the broadening perspective of UNFPA that population issues are all-embracing and need to be fully integrated into overall national planning and development. Thus, the multidisciplinary approach taken by the Team in its review of an early draft of the Pacific Human Development Report (PHDR), and its special competence to identify key population issues under the various heads of the Report, ensured that a major contribution by the CST would be solicited by UNDP. In a similar vein, the intention of UNDP to produce situation analyses for all countries in the Pacific is now certain to entail a major input from the Team, since meeting the wide terms of reference provided by UNDP in many ways would incorporate establishing the same kind of linkages with national development as our own PRSDs or strategic planning.

For many of the agencies and eventually for all governments, the role of information in decision- making at the planning, monitoring and evaluation stages of development, has given data collection a central place ensuring effective use of very scarce human and financial resources. It is not without significance that I was coopted onto the UNDP PHDR team, particularly following my earlier criticism that without effective monitoring the direction and pace of human development would be difficult to determine. Other agencies, including UNIFEM for gender and development, UNICEF for child and maternal health and development, and SPC for epidemiology, health and population information systems, have also sought the cooperation of the CST in modelling information and data needs in national development.

The TSS/CST is beginning to have a major impact on the development of frameworks and models and the conceptualisation of data needs for national planning and human development, which takes account of a broad spectrum of interests. The growing ability of CST advisers to interact with each other in establishing information systems in areas such as population and development, GPD and reproductive health, further enriches the contribution that the Team can make.

Apart from the issue of professional networking, cross-fertilization of ideas among team members has also helped change the focus of statistical support to countries. True, population censuses and civil registration still comprise the main sources for population statistics. But even here there has been a noticeable shift in emphasis away from technical support restricted to developing the instruments of censuses and surveys towards ensuring that users get the statistical service they deserve. This shift is accomplished in a number of ways. Joint missions help in stressing the necessarily strong relationship between producers and users of statistics. Not only do the advisers work closely together to show how this might work, but programmes recommended and supported by the Team give a sharp focus to workshops and meetings to discuss and disseminate statistical reports and to assist users in developing models and applications for using data in planning.

Another important function that the CST is able to perform is to encourage greater use of existing databases. Sometimes this involves basic research or analysis directed to specific subject-matter or policy areas. Wherever possible national staff are encouraged to participate in such activities, and introduced, where relevant, to new analytic skills or the applications of useful software. Increasingly frequently, the Team is asked to redirect results of analysis, again to serve the needs of specific users.² Such repackaging of results involves the use of attractive presentations, using photographs, sketches, maps and graphics to illustrate that statistics need not be complicated, and that simplicity does not necessarily detract from usefulness. Indeed, we are finding that more countries are seeking assistance in this area as they attempt to satisfy their wider and more sophisticated audience and we would earmark this as a future growth area.

6. Implications For National Statistical Systems

The requirements of governments and donor agencies for more broad-scope statistics can only in the most partial way be met from population censuses and surveys. Add to the growing variety of user demand, the implied need for continuous data called for to monitor population, health and other development programmes, and the inadequacy of existing sources is greatly exposed. While I believe this is true for statistics in all developing countries, the situation in the Pacific is among the least satisfactory. As already argued, population censuses have been poorly exploited and users have been frustrated in attempts to gain access to data files. Populations are very small and it is not always easy to justify the use of sample surveys. Thus demographic or health surveys are rarely conducted and when they are, findings are sometimes disputed. In all cases, the cost of establishing a formal statistical organization and of conducting formal statistical collections can seem excessively high for the small fragile Pacific economies.

Is there a solution? Are there cost-effective approaches that might be pursued that could meet some of the more important demands for data? The answer to both these questions is "yes". Statisticians speak a great deal about the potential uses of administrative records. What they have in mind as a rule are continuous and well-established data generation systems that provide near universal coverage. Good examples are civil registration, trade, immigration, customs and hospital-based morbidity. However given the wide-ranging demands for data and the inadequacy of the conventional system in providing a cost-effective service to users, the potential gain in the Pacific in making full use of available statistical information could be enormous.

In at least two ways, I believe the present view on what constitutes useful administrative records will need to change. Firstly, the scope must be extended. Areas covered must be expanded to almost every endeavour for which management information is recorded. Activities will include government, semi-government, NGO and inter-government and international agencies. In Fiji, for example, useful information could be obtained from such diverse organizations as the Fiji Trades Union Congress, the Fiji Council of Churches, the Fiji National Council of Women, Housing and Relief Trust, Women's Crisis Centre, Fiji Youth League, Women in Fisheries Network, Fiji Development Bank, Native Lands Trust Board, and so the list goes on.³ Secondly, notions of coverage will need to be more flexible. Where coverage rates are high or sufficient to provide estimates at the national level, administrative records can clearly serve as substitutes for more conventional censuses and surveys. But even where coverage is patchy or geographically selective the important micro data that could be generated must be seen as complementary to other data, but especially if, as is often the case, the information so obtained is all that exists in its field.

Population Statistics in the Pacific : Current Status and Future Directions

Collection	Current Status	Future Direction
Census	Regular census throughout region but little systematic attempts to standardise methodologies, processing or analysis	Generally less frequent census and more regional integration
Surveys	Very well conducted	Strengthen national survey-taking capabilities possibly develop regional survey mechanisms
Vital Statistics	Generally poor coverage	More coordinated national systems needed and greater efforts to change public attitudes
Migration Statistics	Not collected in all countries	Need to introduce and utilise passenger cards for all arrivals/departures
Service Statistics	Generally weak and out of date	More effective recording of service delivery and programme management
Other Administrative Records	Rich sources of statistics largely neglected	NSOs and other agencies need to cooperate to improve recording systems and to generate accurate and current statistics

I believe we need to think of information and statistics as national resources, of value when they are properly used, wasted when they are not. Not all these resources are of equal value, but together they feed into a national grid which collectively is known as the national statistical system. The ideas themselves are not new, but taken to a logical extent, could change the way statistical services operate and are managed. It would certainly enrich the range of data generated and provide sufficient continuous data series to permit proper monitoring of national programmes and projects, and would provide rapid feedback to planners and managers working in all sectors to enable them to modify goals or strategies or to influence politicians in the formulation of appropriate policies.

For the countries to take positive steps, they will need to be encouraged by donors and advisers and some financial support will be required. Statistical staff will need to spend more time working with substantive departments or NGOs in the setting-up and strengthening of management systems. Training too would need to be reoriented to meet the needs of the statistical system.

Governments in the broader sense would have to support the reorientation, and public service commissions would need to accommodate the growth in out-posted assignments. Statistical legislation may also need to be strengthened to clarify the jurisdiction of the national statistician. It is of more than passing interest that one Pacific country that invested quite heavily in this approach, lost all its out-posted staff as they were welcomed and promoted by the receiving departments. The lesson for the statistics office, understandably, was that the experiment had failed and the scheme was terminated. The larger lesson of course was its overwhelming success in demonstrating that the organization and packaging of information can be a high value-added activity.

And the view of how censuses and surveys are undertaken will need to be reconsidered. Given the patchy and recent history of census taking in many PICs, it is not surprising that each has pursued its own census programme, responding to what are felt as unique national needs. Yet many of these needs are very similar and there is a case, a strong one even, for countries to work more closely together in planning and conducting regional population censuses.

A useful model is that of that of the Caribbean (Commonwealth) countries that worked closely together in the last round of censuses. Common questionnaire design and processing facilities were some of the tasks that were rationalised to achieve a more cost-effective (and more comparable) census programme. This is the time to reflect on how far a coordinated approach would be useful in the Pacific, especially bearing in mind the difficulties of funding that are likely to grow in the coming years. At the very least, I would imagine, there is a case for a common core questionnaire, the use of standard processing packages and systems, and the establis-hment of a pool of local or regional consultants. But other areas, including training, mapping and analysis could all be included if national statisticians were to pursue integration in ernest.

7. Where Do We Go From Here?

After less than three years of operation, the distillation of the experiences of the CST Suva in the areas of data collection, processing and analysis, enables some tentative conclusions to be reached. Firstly, the high expectations from Pacific countries that population censuses will continue to be supported on a grand scale will need to be lowered. This will not be easy in the Pacific where there are few donors and users have come to depend so highly on census results. More cost-effective methodologies and approaches are needed.

Secondly, a more concerted effort is needed to tap potential statistics outside of the formal statistical system, although this in time will need re-defining to clarify "statistical production boundaries". For the CST the immediate areas of interest are to assist in the development of statistical series in areas within the UNFPA mandate that will include development planning, GPD and reproductive health. The support for developing these series should come as a natural by-product of substantive work with the appropriate agenc-ies and organizations.

Thirdly, the CST data collection and analysis advisers will need to interact more closely with the other Team members, other agencies and national institutions. This process is already occurring and is producing unexpected benefit. The process will also encourage the view that the need for statistics and management information "cross-cuts" the core programme areas, reproductive health, population policy and advocacy. It is not difficult to argue for the importance of reliable and relevant data in each of these areas.

Of course the changing thrust will bring with it new problems and challenges. I have touched upon the intensification of the cross-cutting role for the CST. But how will countries respond to the changes? How speedily can the new mood among the planners and managers that statistical services need to be improved be passed on in a positive way to statisticians? We all have a large advocacy role to play.