Tonga Statistical Innovation Tender

Project ID P171377Region East asia and pacificCommitment Amount Us 2.00 millionTotal Project Cost Us 2.00 millionProposed Development ObjectivesProgram Level Development Objective To increase availability and access to timely data for policymaking in the Pacific Region. Country Project Development Objective To improve the quality frequency and timeliness of welfare statistics in the Pacific Island Countries PIC. Regional Organization Project Development Objective To strengthen the capacity of the regional organization in coordinating technical assistance to NSOs and fostering improved practices in the region. D. Concept Description The Statistical Innovation and Capacity Building in Pacific Islands Series of Projects SOP will support countries in the Pacific region to increase the quality frequency and timeliness of socioeconomic statistics. The program envisions one regional organization grant to the Statistics for Development Division SDD of the Pacific Community and two to three country level projects. The grant to the regional organization has planned three components. First the grant will support the newly formed Pacific Statistics Methods Board PSMB. The PSMB was created by the 2017 Heads of Planning meeting to promote rigorous approaches to methodological work in regional National Statistics Offices NSOs. The second component supports SDD to increase their capacity to analyze and provide training in welfare measurement including the calculation of poverty statistics. The final component provides financing to foster innovation focused mainly on novel methods of data collection. The country-level grants support the collection of the next one to two rounds of the Household Income and Expenditure Survey HIES using improved methods including a revised questionnaire electronic data capture and verification and reduced processing times. In addition the country projects will provide targeted support to the project implementation teams within the NSOs including materials and non-statistics technical training.