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Where is Slovenia? (Kje je Slovenija?) |
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Tuesday, 09 August 2011 |
Interview of Professor Pavle Sicherl in the leading Slovenian newspaper DELO, August 8, 2011In the interview the time distance innovation and applications in economics and statistics were explained. The main conclusions on the position of Slovenia and Europe are from the article 'Kje je Slovenija?' in the proceedings of the symposium at the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts at the 10th anniverasry of death of Professor Aleksander Bajt.
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Internet users among the best performers of MDG indicators |
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Tuesday, 21 September 2010 |
Making MDG statistics more understandable to policy makers and to common people The speed of diffusion of ICT sector indicates its much greater potential for catching up and becoming an important instrument to reduce world disparities. This is seen also by comparing implementation with respect to Internet users per 100 inhabitants with the implementation of other MDG indicators. The estimate for Internet users per 100 inhabitants was calculated from the ITU data for Developing countries for 2009 showed that S-time-distance would be -4.0 years (4 years ahead of the line to 2015 target of 25% penetration rate), indicating that the actual value for 2009 was expected to be reached on the line to target only in 2013. For 2008 analysing 194 countries showed that widely predominant share of population (88% of world population) is ahead of the line to target. This result is in sharp contrast with the Official Development Aid from the same Goal 8 domain, which is 4.6 years behind the line to target.
This example shows that S-time-distance can be especially useful in comparisons across different indicators or indicators from different domains. The new generic time distance methodology offers policy makers, NGOs, media and the general public a new view of the implementation of the MDGs that is exceptionally easy to understand and communicate. S-time-distance calculates the time lead or time lag of actual values from the lines to 2015 MDGs targets. It is like tracking the actual arrivals in comparison with the train (airplane, bus) timetable.
The numerical MDG target for Internet users per 100 inhabitants is not clearly specified. Therefore we show the outcomes of a sensitivity analysis if the 2015 targets for Internet penetration rate would be 30%, 35% or 40%. Results for 6 world regions show that for Europe, Americas and CIS all alternative targets for 2015 would already be achieved in 2009, with the exception of CIS for 40%. For all four alternative targets the other three regions, Arab States, Asia & Pacific and Africa are ahead of the respective lines to 2015 targets. Higher targets for the indicator Internet users per 100 inhabitants reduce the time lead ahead of the lines to target but even Africa for the target of 40% penetration rate would in 2009 still be ahead of its line to target. This is in sharp contrast with some other MDG indicators where the delays behind the respective lines to targets were very substantial.
By seeing with new eyes of the time distance perspective new perceptions of the situation with broader conclusions can be reached with new development stories from existing MDG data at the world, country and local levels. SICENTER developed a free web tool to facilitate this for interested users. The time distance monitoring methodology can be usefully applied also in operational monitoring of implementation of plans, budgets, forecasts, projects, etc. at macro and micro levels.
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Official development assistance alert for the UN MDG Summit |
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Wednesday, 01 September 2010 |
Time delays for official development assistance in 2009
Net official development assistance continues to be disappointing. S-time-distance measure was used to get an easily understandable overview of the situation whether the 22 DAC countries are on- or off- the track to the UN 2015 target of 0.7 percent of gross national income to be devoted to official development assistance (ODA/GNI). In 2009 in the group with considerable delays USA, Germany, Austria and Canada were between 4-6 years behind the line to the UN 2015 target, the delay was about 7 years for New Zealand and Italy, and 8 years for Australia. The delay for Portugal, Greece and Japan was more than 9 years as the 2009 percentage was even below that in the starting year 2000.
While several of the analysed countries are not officially committed to this UN target such common benchmark shows that there is a wide gap between the development assistance efforts among the observed 22 countries. The ODA/GNI value in the five European countries that have already reached the 0.7 percent target is in relative terms four times higher than in the group of four countries (United States, Japan, Italy and Greece) where it does not exceed 0.2 percent of their GNI. It is clear that if there is a will there is a way.
Expressed in time units (years, months, etc.) the interpretation for monitoring with S-time-distance measure is easy and intuitively understandable to everyone. For given level of actual values it deals with the deviation (lead or lag in time) between the time when such actual value was attained and the time when that level was supposed to be reached on the line to the 2015 MDGs target. It is like tracking the actual arrivals in comparison with the train or bus timetable. Thus it represents an excellent presentation and communication tool that is intuitively understood by policy makers, experts, managers, media and the general public.
The results are prepared using the free web GAPTIMER monitoring tool for calculation and graphing of S-time-distance deviations from the line to target that allows numerous stakeholders to benefit from this novel statistical measure for policy debate for many issues and at various levels.
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Background Information for the UN MDG Summit |
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Saturday, 10 July 2010 |
How to make MDG implementation statistics more understandable to policy makers and to common peopleThe new generic time distance methodology offers policy makers, NGOs, media and the general public a new view of the implementation of the MDGs that is exceptionally easy to understand and communicate. S-time-distance calculates the time lead or time lag of actual values from the lines to 2015 MDGs targets. It is like tracking the actual arrivals in comparison with the train (airplane, bus) timetable.
Results are presented at three levels: for 8 world regions, for all countries in sub-Saharan Africa, and for DAC members on Official Development Aid.
World regions: Analysing the implementation of MDGs for the aggregate Developing Regions showed that 8 indicators out of the selected 10 indicators were behind the lines to the 2015 targets for between 4.6 years and nearly 13 years, only two were ahead. The largest delays were for maternal mortality ratio and prevalence of underweight children under-five years of age; by regions in sub-Saharan Africa, Western Asia and Southern Asia. These recorded substantial delays in the implementation of MDGs should not overshadow the fact that progress has been made in all selected indicators and in all world regions, though in very different degrees.
Sub-Saharan Africa by countries: for 8 indicators S-time-distance analysis was in 81 percent of cases behind the lines to target and 19 percent of cases ahead of them. The worst situation was for the indicator percent of the population undernourished. The percentage rule for determining the MDGs target understates the progress made in Africa and puts a much more demanding target in terms of feasibility to regions and countries with more difficult starting positions.
Official Development Aid: tracking the timetable for reaching the UN target of 0.7 percent of GNI with time distance showed that the performance in 2009 was off the track: the delay of 4.6 years for DAC total.
By seeing with new eyes of the time distance perspective new perceptions of the situation with broader conclusions can be reached with new development stories from existing MDG data at the world, country and local levels. SICENTER developed a free web tool to facilitate this for interested users. The time distance monitoring methodology can be usefully applied also in operational monitoring of implementatiton of plans, budgets, forecasts, projects, etc. at macro and micro levels.
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Pavle Sicherl: Contribution to the Public Consultation on the future EU 2020 Strategy |
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Tuesday, 02 February 2010 |
What happened with the implementation of the Lisbon targets? Lessons to be learned about transparency and
co-operationThe preparation and implementation of the new EU 2020 Strategy requires realistic evaluation of the initial position including past performance, better transparency and more effective co-ordination at the EU and national levels.
Table 1. Monitoring implementation of the EU Lisbon targets in two dimension: time distance and percentage deviation  By 2008 the actual developments were lagging behind the respective lines to the Lisbon targets by 2.7 years for dynamics of GDP, for 3.1 years for total employment rate and for more than 7 years for the share of R&D in GDP (delay of seven years in an eight year period!). This is a much more transparent way of monitoring the implementation for governments and civil society that can help to bring about continuous policy adjustments than the statistical format of presentation in the Commission reports. The analysis of implementation is much more interesting also in political terms when it is made against the national targets.
Good governance uses the feedback from the implementation as an indispensable phase of the policy process to adjust the future actions. Four lessons are discussed in the contribution: 1. One has to start from a realistic evaluation of the initial position and of past performance. 2. For efficient implementation much better co-ordination is needed. 3. Much greater transparency is needed both in setting up the strategy and in its continuous monitoring. 4 A transparent innovative method for monitoring implementation at all levels is available but not utilised
The benefits of the new S-time-distance view in comparisons, competitiveness issues, benchmarking, target setting and monitoring for economic, employment, social, R&D and environment indicators at the world, EU, country, regional, city, sector, socio-economic groups, company, project, household and individual levels could be immediately applied to many indicators from a wide variety of substantive fields using existing data and indicator systems from international, national, regional, business and local sources.
“But I want to go further. We need to match this huge investment in ex ante assessment with an equivalent effort in ex post evaluation – to ensure that our proposals really do deliver what they promise and to enable us to revise and correct them where they fail to work as expected. All of these initiatives are designed to focus EU action on the essentials, removing bureaucratic processes and unnecessary centralisation“ (Barroso, 2009, p. 29).
These political guidelines should be applied right now for a thorough ex post analysis of implementation at EU and country levels to benefit from the lessons learned from the ongoing Lisbon Strategy and not just proclaimed and reserved for some undefined distant future. The time distance methodology can make a modest contribution in the consultation process by presenting the situation in transparent terms with clear interpretability both to decision makers and to the general public, which can as well facilitate understanding, commitment and broader participation in the preparation of the EU 2020 Strategy.
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