National statistical systems are being called upon to enhance their contribution to fill data gaps and produce consistent statistics to describe issues related to sustainable development and disaster risk reduction. This will involve statistical domains like the environment, the economy, and society. Guidelines and standardization across frameworks like the SDGs and Sendai Framework are needed. National statistical offices have an important role to play in areas like collecting disaster-related data, providing technical assistance, and publishing statistics on extreme events and disasters to support monitoring of international agreements. For countries to make progress, statistical capacity must be strengthened through collaboration across data producers and alignment with official statistics.

1. National perspectives on the opportunities and
challenges for National Statistical Systems seeking to
align with the 2015 agreement
Angela Ferruzza
Istat
Giovanna Tagliacozzo
Istat
UN World Data Forum - 2017
Aligning 2015 agreements through multi-purpose disaster related data and statistics
Cape Town 16 January 2017

2.  Increasing demand for Official Statistics to describe complex issues:
Sustainable development, Climate change, Disaster related statistics
 NSSs and NSOs are called to enhance their contribution to fill data gaps:
 produce consistent and comparable statistics and indicators
 describe state and trends and socio-economic interactions between
Human and Natural systems
 A wide range of interlinked statistical domains are involved
New Challenges but also New Opportunities
New challenges and new opportunities for NSO
UN World Data Forum – Cape Town 16 January 2017

3. International Framework
FDES
SEEA
SDG
CCRS
SENDAI
UNISDR
MEED
UNSD
COP21
 Consistency among frameworks and Recommendations
 Guidelines and standardization
 Intersections among monitoring systems and integration
among indicators
SDG: 17 goal, 169 target, 240 indicators
CCRS: 5 sectors, 40 indicators
OEIWG Terminology Indicators
OEIWG: 7 target, 38 indicators
UN World Data Forum – Cape Town 16 January 2017

4. Conference of European Statisticians (CES) decided to launch this work.
Started 2015, aimed to:
 Clarify the role of National Statistical Offices in measuring extreme events and
disasters
 Identify practical steps on how NSOs can support disaster management and risk
reduction
 Identify main data needs and data sources. Take into account SDGs
 Identify needs for harmonisation of classifications, terms and definitions
Tools
 Survey to have information from the NSO on the actual situation
 Cooperate with the UN agencies and other international organisations working in
this area (UNISDR, UNESCAP, WMO) to consider the definitions
 Draft recommendations on the measurement of extreme events and disasters
within the realm of official statistics
UNECE TF Measuring Extreme Events and Disasters
http://www.unece.org/statistics/statstos/task-force-on-measuring-extreme-events-and-disasters.html
UN World Data Forum – Cape Town 16 January 2017

5. A3/4. What is/should be the role of the NSO in EED-related statistics in
your country?
15
11
15
17
19
21
18
6
10
11
11
12
13
15
Coordination role
Analyse EED related data
Collect EED related data
Provide data in case of
occurrence
Provide technical
assistance
Provide for DRA
Publish EED related data
Is Should be
UN World Data Forum – Cape Town 16 January 2017
UNECE TF Measuring Extreme Events and Disasters

6. E4. In your view, which are the priority areas in EED related statistics for
which guidelines, recommendations, best practices, international
standards, etc., would be needed?
UN World Data Forum – Cape Town 16 January 2017
UNECE TF Measuring Extreme Events and Disasters

7.  Most NSOs consider themselves as being at an early development stage or do
not yet produce EED-related statistics
 There is a wide range of national institutions producing these kind of statistics
 Most NSOs believe they should play a bigger role in producing EED-related
statistics, including taking up the coordination role
 In most countries official statistics are used for EED-related activities
(population statistics, housing statistics, agriculture statistics, etc.) by other
agencies
 Guidelines, recommendations, best practices, international standards etc.
would be needed primarily for methodology, definitions and the integration of
geospatial information
Main Outcomes from the Survey
UN World Data Forum – Cape Town 16 January 2017

8. Survey EED: Italy
UN World Data Forum – Cape Town 16 January 2017

9. The aim is to have a set of possible coherent indicators to measure the
process in the implementation of Sendai Framework and of SDGs
But … the concrete operazionalization of the indicators and of its
recommended terminology, methods and definitions is a long process …That
has already started
 To fill the data gaps assessing available data it is necessary to consider the
multiplicity of sources of data and producer and institutions involved
 Transform data into statistics within official systems: the huge amount of
unprocessed observations and measurements need to become “Statistics”,
considering the necessary methodological issues and adopting common
terminology and definitions, enhancing multidisciplinary approach and
expertise
Challenges, Building Capacity and Role of NSO in Italy
UN World Data Forum – Cape Town 16 January 2017

10.  Access large and diverse microdata sets (administrative data, big data
..) integrate and combine various types of relevant data, linking datasets
across domains
 Existing statistics should become more usable for the analysis,
investing in building and implementing harmonized methods and definitions
For example:
Number of deaths, missing persons and persons affected by disaster per
100,000 people (SDGs and Sendai Indicator) requires detailed analysis of
Causes of death – standardized death rate, considering detailed causes of
death: victims of tzunami, earthquake, volcanic eruption, etc…
 New statistics could be developed ensuring a coherent system at
national and international level
 Besides the global and national scale, regional scale and georeferenced
data are essential for the comprehension of the phenomena dynamics
Challenges, Building Capacity and Role of NSO in Italy
UN World Data Forum – Cape Town 16 January 2017

11.  Regular planning of joint activities between various institutions that in
various ways have an active part in the construction and implementation of
the strategy, are necessary actions
In Italy collaboration among Civil Protection and other research agencies
(ISPRA) could be essential to improve the production of indicators requested to
monitoring Sendai and SDGs
National Statistical System is involved: developing partnerships among
different producers is crucial
December 2016, Istat produced a first release of SDGs indicators (95
indicators related to 66 SDGs indicators), other releases will be in the next
months, considering also Sendai indicators
Autumn 2016, Istat produced specific data related to the last earthquake
considering the socio-demographic and economic issues for involved areas
Challenges, Building Capacity and Role of NSO in Italy
UN World Data Forum – Cape Town 16 January 2017

12. Background:FD-Italy
Directive of the Prime Minister Dir.P.C.M.
49/2015
“the Civil Protection Department makes available to Regions and River Basin Authorities a
web-GIS platform, named FloodCat, that fulfills the function of catalogue of flood events and,
therefore, should be used to address the requirements of the FD.”
Developed by
In collaboration with
and
To be used by all
CA
FloodCat
UN World Data Forum – Cape Town 16 January 2017

13. FloodCat
Evento (Alluvione in Provincia di Alessandria
- autunno 2014)
UN World Data Forum – Cape Town 16 January 2017

14. To ensure high quality and sustainable monitoring of the targets of the Sendai Framework
and the Sustainable Development Goals:
it is therefore necessary to align relevant components of the monitoring framework with
official statistics
Such alignment will ensure that Sendai monitoring takes full advantage of the expertise and
services of national statistical systems, which on a continuous basis produce statistics
that are comparable over time and across borders
It is important to recognize the use of official statistics as a multi-purpose information
source to elaborate indicators for progress monitoring and results reporting against the
Sendai Framework, the SDGs and the Paris Agreement
Within the intergovernmental platforms provided by two of the United Nations regional
commissions, UNECE and ESCAP, disaster experts and statisticians from around the world
are working and will work on a draft Statistical Framework for Disaster-related Statistics
It is essential to undertake further technical work building on the outcomes of the OEIWG,
in respect of existing statistical standards, including those related to the SDGs, and to
develop guidelines to guarantee the some high quality and sustainable standards
Nowandthefuture
UN World Data Forum – Cape Town 16 January 2017

15. In Europe also Eurostat is considering Sendai indicators among the indicators that should
be produced for SDGs indicators
There is still a long way to go but
NSOs have a crucial role in strengthening and increasing the production of Statistical
Information, improving knowledge and awareness
Istat,
promotes and works on the cooperation and awareness of the agencies and
institutions operating in the NSS and not only, to exploit the existing information assets, to
develop high quality robust coherent and consistent statistics with the statistical international
framework on SDGs in general and in particular on Sendai working
UN World Data Forum – Cape Town 16 January 2017
Nowandthefuture