Mois : février 2019

Jointly with the Statistical, Economic and Social Research and Training Centre for Islamic Countries (SESRIC), MEDSTAT IV organised a new regional workshop on the experiences and tools related to MED-HIMS (Ankara, 14-16 February 2019)

The Mediterranean Household International Surveys (MED-HIMS) Programme represents a comprehensive instrument for informing about the determinants and consequences of international migration. It was developed partly as a sub-initiative of MEDSTAT and involved most of its members (at the only exception of Israel) and allows collecting data, from households and individuals, on out-migration, return migration, immigration and forced migration and the perception and intention of migration.

The 10^th MED-HIMS Workshop, which was held at SESRIC Headquarters on 14-16 February 2019, had the priority purpose to discuss the experiences of implementation of the Egypt-HIMS 2013, the Jordan-HIMS 2014 and mainly the Phase 1 of the Morocco-HIMS 2018/2019 as well as to review the latest available versions of the model manuals for data collection. The event was organised back-to-back with the 3^rd Meeting of the Expert Group on Refugees and IDPs Statistics, and attended by representatives from all the participating ENP-South countries, three from the MED-HIMS Programme Steering Committee members (i.e. UNHCR, IOM and ILO), the ICMPD, SESRIC, the MED-HIMS Project Implementation Unit and MEDSTAT IV.

The workshop mainly highlighted the importance of producing frequent results on international migration as to stay aligned with rather evolving national and international frameworks and recommendations and requirements such as the monitoring of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the European Union Emergency Trust Fund for Africa. The discussions also addressed towards the collection of data using Computer Assisted Personal Interview (CAPI), the further sharing of the experiences and tools among the involved countries and using the national results for comparative analysis.

As a main outcome, the revised ‘standard’ version and the ‘light’ version of the MED-HIMS Model Questionnaires and other model manuals for data collection will be soon finalised and disseminated under MEDSTAT IV in view of their use around 2020 in Tunisia and possibly Egypt, Jordan, Libya and Palestine (depending on the international funding).

 

 

Links:

Eurostat: http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/fr/home

MED-HIMS: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/european-neighbourhood-policy/enp-south/med-hims

SESRIC: www.sesric.org

UNHCR: www.unhcr.org

ILO: www.ilo.org/stat/lang–en/index.htm

IOM: www.iom.int

ICMPD: www.icmpd.org

 

For more information, please contact MEDSTAT4@expertisefrance.fr

MEDSTAT IV organises a technical workshop in Lisbon on February 19, 2019

 A reliable business register is a key asset for a statistical office, and not only for designing and implementing surveys on businesses. The register is also a key tool for many other topics such as the structure of the production capacities, employment, the national accounts, external trade statistics and more detailed statistics for specific sectors of economic activities. This is why there is a strong interest in the statistical offices for establishing and maintaining a business register that is of good quality.

After having addressed the creation of the business registers and their regular updating at the occasion of several technical events in the past 3 years, MEDSTAT IV is now opening the discussion on quality with the ENP-South countries. Two representatives from each of the countries, one from the statistical office and another from a partner institution, will meet in Lisbon and will debate on different issues attached to the quality of the business registers such as the reconciliation between the results of the censuses of establishments and the administrative sources. They will also assess the best ways to translate the recommendations of the code of practices in this particular sector.

To facilitate the discussion, two experts from the EU statistical system, from INSEE-France and ISTAT-Italy, will present their respective country experiences and answer the questions of the participants.

On February 20, the working group on business register and statistics will meet for the last time under the MEDSTAT IV to assess the results achieved so far and identify future priorities for the EU-MED cooperation on statistics in this specific area. The working group meeting will be an opportunity to address the question of the impact of the activities that have been implemented under the MEDSTAT IV project and to update the monitoring and evaluation system.

 

For more information contact MEDSTAT4@expertisefrance.fr.

On February 6-7 2019, MEDSTAT IV organised a meeting on the measurement of the SDGs which took place in Athens and gathered representatives from the ENP-S statistical systems, from Eurostat, from three EU countries statistical institutes (Stats Denmark, ISTAT and INSEE), from the UfM, UN-ESCWA and the EEA.

On the demand of the ENP-S countries, MEDSTAT IV re-oriented its sector activities in order to focus more on the measurement of the SDGs. This issue is a key challenge for the ENP-S countries statistical systems in particular for the pressure it puts on the structure and content of the statistical production but also on the resources available for statistics, human, technical and financial. After having addressed the issue through the existing sector working groups, in particular the ones related to labour market statistics, migration statistics and Energy/transport statistics, and through a specific training course, the project called for a specific regional meeting on the SDGs.

The objective of the meeting was first to discuss the “state of the art” in each of the ENP-S countries: what had been done and with which results and problems. Experiences in the North were brought as examples to consider in the discussion that followed on what to do next. Questionnaires were sent to the ENP-S countries in advance of the meeting which helped drafting a detailed synthesis which can serve as a benchmark for the future discussions. The second objective was to bring into the debate complementary perspectives on the existing regional statistics platforms for the SDGs (Eurostat, UN-ESCWA) and on the role statistics could play in feeding sector policy agendas with relevant data (for Gender in the case of the UfM and for Environment in the case of the EEA).

The discussions covered a large ground with a focus on the necessary coordination (within the national statistical systems and with policy makers, with regional and international platforms and between these platforms), the identification of the national and regional priorities among the large number of targets and indicators composing the international SDG framework and the dissemination of the indicators.

The group advocated for the creation of a specific working group on this topic in the framework of the EU-MED cooperation in statistics. It also identified several possible activities that could constitute a relevant regional work programme, building on the regular sharing of experiences, the identification and replication of good practices and investments in training.

For more information, please contact: MEDSTAT4@Expertisefrance.fr

Jointly with European Training Foundation, MEDSTAT IV organised a technical workshop on measuring the Qualifications and Skills in the ENP-South Countries with focus on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in Turin, on 29-30 January 2019.

The MEDSTAT IV working group on Labour market statistics deliberately chose to focus its work on the monitoring of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), in particular on the indicators relevant for the labour market, the employment and the employability of people (SDG-8 and SDG-4). Recently established by ILO, the guidelines concerning measurement of qualifications and skills mismatches of persons in employment, have been the object of the discussions that were held in Turin between the representatives of the ENP-S countries and specialists the ETF, the Department of Statistics of ILO, and experts from MEDSTAT IV.

The workshop highlighted the importance of skill mismatch in the labour market, showing outcomes and analysis of the causes and consequences, as well as the relevance of the comparability of national statistics following the international requirements. Mismatch varies by occupation and level of education, there can be regional differences and variances across sectors. Many ENP-South countries have already implemented or started to implement the collection and calculation of indicators that allow to identify, monitor, and analyse skill mismatch. Experiences and ideas from countries belonging to other regions as well as an enhanced collaboration with international organisations can be used to provide ideas and templates for national approaches. Among other, identifying mismatch in the microdata of large operations such as the Labour Force Surveys may lead to better analyse mismatch with respect to the many involved dimensions (regions, sector, occupation, qualification, demographics).

The 5^th working group meeting of the sector of labour market statistics, which was held in the same venue on 31 January 2019, endorsed the recent and ongoing joint work on the measurement of the decent work, the skills and competences and the participation of women in the labour market, with a sustained priority attention to the SDGs. It was the occasion to agree on future priorities and in particular on the consolidation of the work initiated on skills and qualifications.

 

 

Contacts:

Eurostat: http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/fr/home

ETF: www.etf.europa.eu

ILO: www.ilo.org/stat/lang–en/index.htm

For more information, please contact MEDSTAT4@expertisefrance.fr