This chapter presents the main findings of a survey of donor funding to data and statistics in 2020. It presents a preliminary picture of what happened to data and statistics funding during the COVID-19 period and explores the extent to which the pandemic and other exogenous factors are responsible for the decline in funding levels. It also discusses the possible implications for countries’ data activities and their ability to produce quality, timely and reliable data and statistics.
The PARIS21 Partner Report on Support to Statistics 2022
A Wake-Up Call to Finance Better Data
1. Status of funding for data and statistics since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic
Abstract
The COVID-19 crisis underscored the vital role that data and statistics play in everyone’s lives. The availability, timeliness and accuracy of data influenced policy choices, with huge implications for people’s health, well-being and livelihoods.
The PARIS21 Partner Report on Support to Statistics 2022 (PRESS 2022) outlines what happened to funding for data and statistics as the pandemic took hold across the world. It highlights the decline in funding for data and statistics during this crucial period despite the acute need. By shedding light on this story and identifying lessons learned, PRESS 2022 can help bring funding for data and statistics back on track to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Today the world is beset by numerous crises. Alongside COVID-19, there is the globally destabilising conflict in Ukraine. Meanwhile, rapidly rising inflation is threatening to drive millions to starvation, and the climate crisis is wreaking havoc in all parts of the world.
With just eight years to go before the end of the SDG era, data and statistics cannot be sidelined until crises are out of the way. As the pandemic has shown, data and statistics are more essential than ever to effectively tackle today’s most pressing issues.
1.1. Funding for data suffered the largest drop since the SDG era began
According to the PRESS 2022 database, international support1 for data and statistics amounted to USD 542 million in 2020, a decrease of over USD 100 million and USD 155 million from 2019 and 2018 levels, respectively. This was the biggest drop in funding since the start of the SDG era. For the first time in a decade, disbursement of funding for data and statistics dropped for two consecutive years (Figure 1.1).
International support for data and statistics fell by USD 100 million between 2019 and 2021, the biggest drop of the SDG era.
Before the pandemic, funding for data and statistics had already stagnated as donors were faced with competing demands for finite resources.
Figure 1.1. Funding for data and statistics dropped more than at any other time in the Sustainable Development Goal era
Note: Data represent disbursements in constant USD million (2020 prices). Information about the Clearinghouse for Financing Development Data, the source of these data, is presented in Box 1.2.
Source: Author’s calculation based on data from the Clearinghouse for Financing Development Data (2022[1]), Smarter financing for development data (database), https://smartdatafinance.org/download-data (accessed on 15 August 2022).
1.2. Investments in gender data declined even as overall funding for gender equality increased
The 2030 Agenda aims for a world in which every group enjoys full gender equality. Achieving gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls in developing countries requires sufficient investment in gender data and statistics.
Since 2015, including during the pandemic, official development assistance (ODA) for gender equality has increased substantially (Figure 1.2). In 2019-20, OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) donors provided USD 56.5 billion in ODA focused on gender equality. This volume represents 45% of their bilateral allocable aid2 commitments screened against the gender equality marker (OECD, 2022[2]).
Figure 1.2. Financial aid for gender equality grew in 2020
Note: Data represent disbursements in constant USD billion (2020 prices). This figure is based on the figure in page 2 of OECD (2022[2]), Development Finance for Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment: A Snapshot, https://www.oecd.org/dac/Gender_ODA_2022.pdf, and includes ODA from non-DAC and multilateral aid providers that also report to the OECD Creditor Reporting System (CRS).
Source: Author’s calculation using data from OECD (2022[3]), Creditor Reporting System (CRS) (database), https://stats.oecd.org/DownloadFiles.aspx?DatasetCode=CRS1 (accessed on 15 August 2022).
While funding for gender equality programmes has steadily increased, there has been no corresponding increase in funding for gender data and statistics. Donors need more and better gender data to measure progress towards the policy objectives targeted by the projects they are funding. In 2020, however, funding for gender data dropped sharply, by 55%, over the average level of 2017-19 (Figure 1.3). This sudden decrease in funding for gender data was three times larger than the drop in overall funding for data and statistics over the same period.
Figure 1.3. While overall funding for gender equality increased, funding for gender data fell significantly in 2020
Note: Data represent disbursements in constant USD values (2020 prices). The average level in 2017-19 is USD 82 billion.
Source: Author’s calculation based on data from the Clearinghouse for Financing Development Data (2022[1]), Smarter financing for development data (database), https://smartdatafinance.org/download-data (accessed on 15 August 2022).
Several partners raised the alarm over the vulnerable state of funding for gender data prior to the pandemic and identified at least three factors contributing to the decline in such funding.
First, as the PRESS has consistently reported, the reliance on a few donors for funding for gender data poses risks (PARIS21, 2021[4]). In the SDG era, five donors have provided two-thirds of funding for gender data, a much higher share than was provided by the top five donors for overall data and statistics (55%) (Figure 1.4). The lack of diversity in the pool of donors makes the stability of funding for gender data more vulnerable to strategic shifts by a single provider, especially during periods of uncertainty.
In the SDG era, five donors have provided two-thirds of funding for gender data, a much higher share than was provided by the top five donors for overall data and statistics. The lack of diversity in the pool of donors makes the stability of funding for gender data more vulnerable to strategic shifts by a single provider, especially during periods of uncertainty.
Figure 1.4. Most gender data funding came from only a few donors in 2016-20
Note: The total value represented in this figure is USD 365 million (2020 prices). In 2018-20, the top five donors for gender data in International Development Association borrowing countries were the World Bank (26%), United Kingdom (16%), United Nations Children’s Fund (16%), Canada (10%) and Sweden (7%).
Source: Author’s calculation based on data from the Clearinghouse for Financing Development Data (2022[1]), Smarter financing for development data (database), https://smartdatafinance.org/download-data (accessed on 15 August 2022).
Second, a higher share of the funding for gender data is allocated to data production activities than of the funding for other statistical activities (Open Data Watch, 2021[5]). Data production was the first area of statistical activities to be interrupted by the pandemic, causing funding for gender data to decline to a greater extent. This imbalanced allocation to direct data production left the statistical community with the hope that once active donors for gender data resume disbursements, the funding decrease in 2020 would be temporary.
The high share of funding to direct production activities also threatens support for other activities in the gender data ecosystem such as strategic planning, data use and data governance. These activities are crucial to generate impact from any gender data produced; without them, the long-term stability of funding is at risk. Funding for data use is already at a historic low. In their responses to a survey conducted by the Bern Network in 2020, many donors and national statistical offices (NSOs) identified the lack of demonstrable cases and impacts as the biggest challenge to mobilising more funding for data and statistics (PARIS21, 2021[4]). A higher level of funding for non-production activities, with more donors involved in the global effort, can empower the gender data community to ensure the stability of funding for gender data once the initial enthusiasm of the limited number of current donors dissipates.
Third, gender data activities have not been mainstreamed into the growing support for gender equality, leaving uncertainties on how progress has been tracked towards SDG 5 (gender equality). As noted by Lange (2020[6]), lack of mainstreaming of support to data and statistics beyond specific support for sectoral data is a key challenge to increasing the effectiveness of support to statistical systems. This challenge is not unique to gender data. But, unlike for many other statistical areas, there was an opportunity to overcome the mainstreaming challenge for gender data – that is, to establish data as an essential component in the substantial inflow of newly funded programmes since the beginning of the SDG era – though this opportunity was missed. Specific data projects, rather than the data components in larger ODA-funded programmes for gender equality, drove the increases in funding for gender data in the last few years. Without resolving this challenge of mainstreaming data activities, funding for gender data may remain bottlenecked.
1.3. Did funding decrease after or because of the COVID-19 crisis?
While the pandemic had an impact on the allocation of funding for many areas of development, its impact was more significant on funding for data and statistics. Excluding COVID-19-related support, the total volume of ODA from DAC members declined by 3.2% from 2018 to 2020, according to OECD data. During the same period, funding for data from the same group of donors dropped by more than 20% (Figure 1.5).
Naturally, activities in many countries were interrupted due to COVID-19 restrictions and practical difficulties. For example, lockdowns and other restrictions on movement delayed censuses in many countries, and this may have impacted disbursements from donors. While available data are not sufficient to determine whether this area of funding will rebound, data on donors’ recent commitments suggest that funding may remain at this level for the short term.
While the pandemic had an impact on the allocation of funding for many areas of development, its impact was more significant on funding for data and statistics.
Figure 1.5. Funding for data fell more sharply during the pandemic than official development assistance not related to COVID-19
Note: The figure shows the change in ODA volumes in 2019 and 2020 relative to the baseline year 2018. The totals do not include funding related to COVID-19. Detailed information on sectoral funding allocation was unavailable as of this writing (September 2022), but preliminary data show a projected increase in ODA in 2021. For more information, see OECD DAC (2022[7]), ODA Levels in 2021: Preliminary Data – Detailed Summary Note, https://www.oecd.org/dac/financing-sustainable-development/development-finance-standards/ODA-2021-summary.pdf.
Source: Author’s calculation based on data from the Clearinghouse for Financing Development Data (2022[1]), Smarter financing for development data (database), https://smartdatafinance.org/download-data (accessed on 15 August 2022) and OECD (2022[3]), Creditor Reporting System (CRS) (database), https://stats.oecd.org/DownloadFiles.aspx?DatasetCode=CRS1 (accessed on 15 August 2022).
1.4. Financial constraints are impeding countries from clearing their backlog of activities
To many partners in the statistical community, evidence of a decline in funding for data and statistics comes as no surprise. Previous editions of the PRESS have raised concerns about several of the factors in global funding flows that can be linked with the most recent decrease (Box 1.1). It was widely reported during the pandemic that many governments around the world deprioritised data and statistical activities, especially early in the COVID-19 crisis when many governments did not include data and statistics among their essential activities (UNECA, 2020[8]; UNFPA, 2020[9]; UN DESA/World Bank, 2021[10]). Deprioritisation and delays have left a significant backlog in civil registration and gender data (UN, 2020[11]) and serious data gaps in countries most in need of support (UN, 2022[12]).
Box 1.1. Three previous editions of PRESS warned about decreased funding for data
PRESS 2019, while reporting an increase in funding commitments for data for the fourth consecutive year, also expressed concern that commitments were nonetheless insufficient to meet recipient countries’ needs, implement the Cape Town Global Action Plan and satisfy the strong demand for data in the SDG monitoring framework (PARIS21, 2019[13]).
Funding for pandemic-related data needs was first captured in PRESS 2020, though based on early and incomplete data. The report underscored that insufficient support for building resilient systems could lead to uncoordinated responses and lack of preparedness to produce quality data (PARIS21, 2020[14]).
Through the nowcast estimation, PRESS 2021 also predicted that the level of funding for data and statistics could remain stagnant even if the pandemic were to have no impact on such funding – that is, even if all donor commitments were to be fulfilled as planned (PARIS21, 2021[4]).
PRESS 2021 also highlighted the trend of fragmented funding of data through sectoral projects for data production without systemic development. The failure to mainstream statistics in sectors, identified as one driver of this trend, led to the significant reduction in funding in 2020.
Source: PARIS21 (2019[13]), The Partner Report on Support to Statistics: PRESS 2019, https://paris21.org/sites/default/files/inline-files/UNV002_Press%202019%2011.pdf; PARIS21 (2020), The Partner Report on Support to Statistics: PRESS 2020, https://paris21.org/sites/default/files/inline-files/PRESS2020%20Final.pdf; PARIS21 (2021[4]), The Partner Report on Support to Statistics: PRESS 2021, https://paris21.org/2021-PARIS21-Partner-Report-on-Support-to-Statistics.
Key international partners in the statistical community also delayed their planned delivery of support (PARIS21, 2020[15]), with some reporting a reduction in their budget for data and statistics. A 2021 study found that four in ten NSOs reported that data collection costs had increased since the pandemic began (UN DESA/World Bank, 2021[10]). Many countries also encountered limitations in carrying out data collection activities through digital and online solutions. With the reduction in support and increase in costs, many countries have still not been able to resume their activities at pre-pandemic levels (World Bank/UN DESA/PARIS21, 2022[16]).
With the reduction in support and increase in costs, many countries have still not been able to resume their activities at pre-pandemic levels.
Box 1.2. How the PRESS report informs the Clearinghouse of Financing Development Data
Data used in this report were collected and processed through the PRESS workstream based on two sources, the OECD CRS and an annual online survey that is completed by a global network of partners in data and statistics.
The CRS records data from DAC members (donors) and some non-DAC donors. DAC members are required to report via the CRS, and non-DAC members report on a voluntary basis. Their reporting provides a comprehensive account of ODA. To supplement the information from the CRS, the online survey covers a subset of CRS variables as well as some additional variables specific to data and statistics. The survey is targeted to both donors and implementing agencies. Responding to the online survey is voluntary, offering respondents an opportunity to share information about their statistical activities. Respondents include non-DAC countries, multilateral organisations, regional statistical training institutes and philanthropic organisations.
Since 2021, the PRESS data workstream has been integrated into the Clearinghouse for Financing Development Data. The Clearinghouse is a hub of data originating from a variety of different sources. In addition to the two sources used by PRESS, data in the Clearinghouse come from existing sources, including the large databases of the World Bank and the International Aid Transparency Initiative. The data are either fetched automatically or manually integrated into the platform. A small proportion of data related to funding opportunities are collected via a survey and pilot assessments. The Clearinghouse provides a more comprehensive view of funding for data and statistics, including the domestic funding situation of recipient countries.
Source: PARIS21 (2022[17]), Methodology for Measuring and Estimating Funding to Data and Statistics: Technical Note for the Partner Report on Support to Statistics, https://paris21-data.github.io/PRESS_methodology_note/.
1.5. Agenda 2030 data needs cannot wait until crises are over
At the halfway point of the 2030 Agenda, it is still unclear whether donors have recognised that across the SDGs – from good governance to poverty reduction and climate change – good data are required but missing. The SDGs focus on multi-sectoral and cross-cutting issues, giving unprecedented importance to data and statistics. Yet the statistical capacity required for the SDG era, such as a well-coordinated system and infrastructure for new data sources, is insufficiently funded, especially among low- and lower middle-income countries. Funding for data and statistics also failed to mainstream across different sectors, with data activities missing in many key development aid programmes that address climate change, gender equality, food security and public health.
While it is understandable that short-term priorities for development financing may be adjusted in light of COVID-19, NSOs are also experiencing a prolonged crisis in funding. National governments and international donors are under enormous pressure from competing new priorities, the fiscal crunch and economic uncertainties across the globe. The funding shortage may have set back capacity in many countries. National statistical systems cannot stay on the waiting list for attention until each of these overlapping crises is over. NSOs are facing demands for new types of data from multiple stakeholders alongside the requirements of their traditional core mandates and the need to manage increasingly complex census and statistical survey programmes. More and stable resources are needed to help NSOs refocus on emerging challenges and the longer-term objectives of statistical capacity development (Box 1.3).
NSOs are facing demands for new types of data from multiple stakeholders alongside the requirements of their traditional core mandates and the need to manage increasingly complex census and statistical survey programmes.
Box 1.3. While the long-term outlook on funding for data and statistics is stable, it relies on commitments from a single donor – the World Bank
From 2018 to 2020, total donor commitments to statistics reached USD 678 million per year (Figure 1.6). Unlike yearly disbursements, which represent the actual funding spent during a year, commitments that are made in one year may be disbursed in subsequent years and are, therefore, more indicative of forward-looking funding. The stable level of commitments maintained in 2020, despite the disruption of planning among many donors in 2020, indicates mid- to long-term stability of funding for data and statistics.
However, it is still too early to know whether these commitments will translate into secured funding for fundamental statistical activities in the coming years since commitments might not be fulfilled. It is also worth noting that the stable outlook in 2020 is largely driven by a single source – the World Bank’s USD 379 million project on Harmonizing and Improving Statistics in West Africa (World Bank, 2020[18]).
Figure 1.6. Total commitments remained stable in 2020
Note: Data represent commitments in constant USD values (2020 prices). Three-year averages are presented in this figure to reduce the volatile nature of commitment data.
Source: Author’s calculation based on data from the Clearinghouse for Financing Development Data (2022[1]), Smarter financing for development data (database), https://smartdatafinance.org/download-data (accessed on 15 August 2022).
References
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Notes
← 1. If not otherwise specified, funding figures presented in this report are disbursements in constant USD values (baseline year 2020). The disbursement is the release of funds to a recipient or the purchase of goods or services for a recipient – by extension, the amount thus spent. Disbursements record the actual international transfer of financial resources or of goods or services valued at the cost to the donor. In the case of activities carried out in donor countries such as training, administration or public awareness programmes, disbursement is taken to have occurred when the funds have been transferred to the service provider or the recipient. These may be recorded gross (i.e. the total amount disbursed over a given accounting period) or net (i.e. the gross amount less any repayments of loan principal or recoveries on grants received during the same period). It can take several years to disburse a commitment.
← 2. When measuring shares of aid to specific sectors, the OECD recommends limiting the denominator to aid that can be apportioned. Otherwise, there is an implicit assumption that none of the aid that is not allocable by sector benefits the specific sectors under review. Sector allocable contributions cover sectors 100 to 400 or purpose codes 11110 to 43082 of the list. Contributions not subject to allocation include general budget support, actions related to debt, humanitarian aid and internal transactions in the donor country.