NIS Donor of technical assistance

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1 NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF STATISTICS European Affairs and International Co-operation in 2011 Newsletter No. 4 NIS Donor of technical assistance Guiding principles In the area of European Affairs and International Co-operation, the vision of the NIS is to create a permanent and efficient information framework for the international activity of the NIS and to keep Romanian statistics in line with the specific European norms and standards, while fully complying with the European Statistics Code of Practice. The main mission undertaken is to bring the information on European statistics closer to the needs and interests of the users of statistics and to permanently monitor the integration of the Community acquis into Romanian statistics. The National Centre for Training in Statistics (CNPS) operates within the NIS. The main task of the centre is the provision of statistical expertise and professional training and specialisation programmes that are acknowledged at national and international level. In 2011, the CNPS continued to carry out statistical assistance projects: The improvement of the structural capacity of the Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia with a view to meeting the requirements of the European Statistical System (areas: dissemination, quality in statistics and agricultural statistics); Technical assistance to Macedonia in the area of education statistics; Continuing the harmonisation of economic and national accounts statistics with the EU and international standards for Montenegro;

2 Technical assistance to the Statistical Office of the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK); The NIS is also a member of the ESTP network European Statistical Training Programme trainers were involved in training programmes in the EU Member States. Bilateral co-operation During the period 7 to 9 April 2011, an official mission was carried out in Veliko Trnovo, Bulgaria, as part of the bilateral co-operation between the Romanian National Institute of Statistics and the Bulgarian National Statistical Institute. The head of the Romanian delegation was Mr. Vergil VOINEAGU, President of the Romanian NIS. The meeting had the following main objectives: discussing issues related to the Population and Housing Census, a large-scale survey that was conducted in 2011 in both countries in the framework of the 2010 world round of population censuses; discussing the methodology for producing migration statistics, the critical issues the official statistics of both countries are dealing with and identifying potential joint solutions to these problems; discussing the progress made by both statistical institutes with regard to the activities of the Working Group Sponsorship on Communication set up under the co-ordination of Eurostat. In this respect, the Romanian NIS and the Bulgarian NSI jointly worked to develop a set of recommendations for the implementation of an assistance website for learning statistics. In 2011, the Romanian NIS continued to provide technical assistance to the National Statistical Bureau of the Republic of Moldova. The areas where assistance was provided were the Population and Housing Census, the General Agricultural Census, the Survey on Reconciliation between Work and Family Life, the Survey on Short-Term Economic Indicators (UNICA), IT in statistics, statistical education and training, etc. High-level international meetings The 59th plenary session of the Conference of European Statisticians was held on June 2011 in Geneva back-to-back with the meeting of the OECD Committee on Statistics. The NIS delegations actively participated in the seminars The organisation of data collection and sharing, and the management challenges for the implementation of SDMX (Statistical Data and Metadata exchange) and Measuring human capital by presenting the national experience in the field. On June 2011, the NIS attended the 8th meeting of the OECD Committee on Statistics (CSTAT) in Geneva as permanent observer. The following topics were discussed during the meeting: CSTAT revised global relations / enhanced engagement strategy, current

3 issues in national accounts and international trade, green growth indicators, new visual dissemination tools, measuring progress (i.e. well-being), and health data and the system of health accounts. The NIS delegation attended the 58th World Statistics Congress of the International Statistical Institute (ISI) that was held in Dublin, Ireland, on August The NIS actively participated in the meeting by presenting two papers: Ways and means of making the communication between the statistical office and users more efficient the experience of the Romanian NIS and Approaches and practices of Romanian official statistics in respect of the quality assurance framework. The NIS also participated in the 97th Conference of the Directors-General of the National Statistical Institutes (DGINS) that was held in Wiesbaden, Germany, on September Two major and current topics relating to European statistics were debated: improving the functioning of the European Statistical System quality management and the new conceptual design for household and social statistics. The Romanian NIS agreed to the content of the Wiesbaden Memorandum, acknowledging the importance of social statistics and the need to make them more flexible in order to meet the growing data requests. The 7th meeting of the national statistical societies from Central Europe The 7th meeting of the national statistical societies from Central Europe was held in Visegrád, Hungary. Representatives of the Romanian Statistical Society and delegates of the statistical societies of Slovenia, Hungary, Czech Republic and Austria attended the meeting. NIS promoter of co-operation in South-Eastern Europe NIS representatives participated in the meeting of the Budva Initiative Group (the group is composed of the heads of the national statistical institutes and the directors of the co-operation divisions of the NSIs of the following countries: Albania, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, UNMIK/Kosovo, FYROM, Turkey, Bulgaria, Greece, Romania and Slovenia). The debates led to the following conclusions:

4 the need to continue to promote statistical co-operation among the countries in the region through concrete actions such as organising conferences and trainings and creating a network of experts; the NIS supported the proposal to organise a regional conference on the topic of Population and Housing Censuses in 2012, which would focus on methodological issues and the challenges of future census rounds. The Romanian NIS also offered to be the host of this conference in November 2012, a proposal that was welcomed by the members of the Group and the Eurostat representatives. Romania s involvement in the decision-making process at European level On 28 September 2011, a Working Group convened in Wiesbaden, Germany, to discuss the amendment of Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council and the commitments to reliability in statistics. Through its representative, the NIS actively participated in the proceedings of this Working Group. On January 2011 (Wiesbaden, Germany), 12 May 2011 (Sofia, Bulgaria) and October 2011 (Barcelona, Spain), members of the NIS management participated in the Working Group Sponsorship on Communication organised by Eurostat. In this context, it is worth mentioning that the Romanian NIS and the Bulgarian NSI were appointed as co-presidents of a European project that aimed to draw up recommendations which would make statistics more friendly to pupils, students and other categories of users. The project was completed in 2011 and its results were presented as good practices inventoried by the Sponsorship Group on Communication (the group was co-chaired by Eurostat and the INE, the Spanish NSI). The NIS representatives actively participated in all four meetings of the European Statistical System Committee (ESSC) organised in 2011 (February, May, September, November).

5 42 meetings were organised by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (meetings in which the NIS took part) with a view to preparing Romania s positions for the COREPER sessions. The Romanian statisticians participated in 10 meetings of the EU Council Working Group on Statistics, where proposals for regulations on the following topics were discussed: the European system of national and regional accounts in the European Union, statistical returns on the carriage of goods by road, European statistics on permanent crops and European statistics on safety from crime. Non-reimbursable external funds received by the NIS In 2011: 33 projects on various statistical topics were carried out with non-reimbursable external funds received by the NIS; the NIS participated in 2 ESSnet projects (projects focused on research & innovation in statistical methodology) whose results are promoted to the benefit of the entire European Statistical System; the NIS received non-reimbursable external funds for 19 contracts that were signed in Long-term traineeships at the NIS NIS participations in seminars, working groups, international conferences In 2011, the NIS employees took part in more than 170 meetings, such as seminars, working groups, conferences, training courses, etc marked the beginning of a new experience for the NIS, namely the provision of technical assistance through long-term traineeships. The NIS received two trainees. They were provided with know-how on the management of European projects. Mrs. Vjollca SIMONI, Director of the Integration and International Relations Department of the Albanian NSI, did a traineeship in the European Affairs and International Co-operation Division during the period 22 February to 22 July 2011.

6 Mr. Basim MEHMETI, an expert in international relations from the Statistical Office of the UNMIK, did a traineeship during the period 5 September to 22 December European Affairs and International Co-operation Division Tel , Fax NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF STATISTICS Bucharest, Sector 5, 16 Libertăţii Avenue