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1. STRONG GOVERNANCE AND COORDINATION

Internationally there is a variety of coordination and governance models in place for agricultural statistics, each of which have been established to meet different national needs and may not be appropriate elsewhere. These models vary in the degree to which responsibility for agricultural statistics is centralised within the national statistical office, or decentralised to other agencies or organisations within the system. However, even in highly decentralised models, a few large agencies tend to dominate⁴³, usually the national statistical agency and relevant ministry of agriculture⁴⁴. It is also usual for one agency to have the role of co-ordinating the statistical activities of the various departments⁴⁵.

The United Nations (UN) Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) notes that both centralised and decentralised systems have their advantages and disadvantages, reflecting the respective areas of expertise of the national statistics agency and ministry of agriculture. Through the Global Strategy to Improve Agricultural and Rural Statistics, the FAO proposes a governance framework that leverages the strengths of both the national statistics office and the ministry of agriculture as part of an integrated statistical system⁴⁶.

In this framework, the FAO proposes that agricultural statistics should be integrated within national statistical systems to promote coherence between agricultural statistics and other economic, social and environmental statistics, enabling analyses of the interrelationships between agriculture and the wider economy and society. Governance over the system should include the national statistics agency and relevant ministries of agriculture, fisheries and forestry, and other organisations providing statistics or administrative data, with each of these stakeholders having a clearly defined role in contributing to data production within the system, based on their area of expertise⁴⁷. A coordination mechanism should be employed between these stakeholders to provide a common voice for seeking resources for the agricultural statistics system within the framework of the national statistical system, and to ensure development of coherent national strategies for the development of agriculture, fisheries and forestry statistics⁴⁸. The UN notes that centralised models, or at the least those with strong central leadership, are better positioned to provide this coherence and integration between the outputs of the statistical system than decentralised approaches⁴⁹.

FOOTNOTES

⁴³ United Nations 1980, Handbook of Statistical Organisation: A study on the organisation of national statistical services and related management issues, Department of International Economic and Social Affairs Statistical Office, Studies in Methods, Series F No. 28, New York; p. 14.
⁴⁴ World Bank, Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), and United Nations Statistical Commission (UNSC) 2011, Global Strategy to Improve Agricultural and Rural Statistics, Report No. 56719-GLB, Washington, DC: World Bank, p.27.
⁴⁵ Ibid, p.14.
⁴⁶ World Bank, Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), and United Nations Statistical Commission (UNSC) 2011, Global Strategy to Improve Agricultural and Rural Statistics, Report No. 56719-GLB, Washington, DC: World Bank, p.27.
⁴⁷ Ibid, p.28.
⁴⁸ Ibid, p.27
⁴⁹ United Nations 1980, Handbook of Statistical Organisation: A study on the organisation of national statistical services and related management issues, p15.