Page 163 - Invited Paper Session (IPS) - Volume 1

IPS124 Hristina A.
to identify best practices in response to “Who” implements the planned
interventions.
The Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness and the Accra Agenda for
Action have recognised that “Aid is about building partnerships for
development. Such partnerships are most effective when they fully harness
the energy, skills and experience of all development actors” (s. OECD,
2005/2008 P. 17). The form in which these various types of skills are
mobilized is a fundamental consideration for project design. Moreover, the
challenge of meeting today’s increasing demands on NSSs, especially on
data to monitor SDGs, in a resource environment that is decreasing in
proportion to these demands, means that more and more in-depth
consideration must be given to how to optimise efficiency, sustainability and
impact. Traditional donor approaches, such as mobilising individual technical
experts for smaller projects or ‘twinning’ arrangements between developing
and developed NSOs, may not be optimal for maximising sustainable impact
and efficiency, and may be more costly than necessary. In this context,
private-public partnerships may provide the necessary capacities to
successfully steer the development of NSOs in the long-run.
Private technical service providers specialised in official statistics
organisations are the most common to efficiently run large and small-scale
CD projects. They bring expertise in combining successful project
management with a contextual understanding of the needs of official
statistics. Their most important advantages are that they are able to:
• understand the practicalities of project implementation
• identify and mobilise the right subject matter experts
• improve cost-effectiveness in implementation processes
• have robust financial management systems
• coordinate partners and stakeholders across sectors, and
• form effective relationships between public and private actors where
necessary (e.g. in gaining access to ‘Big Data’)

Case study
In the following we demonstrate how the theoretical approach to capacity
development can be put into practice using the example of a project
implemented by GOPA Consultants consortium together with the Lao
Statistics Bureau (LAOSTAT). The specific objective of this project was to
improve LAOSTAT’s capacity to produce and disseminate reliable data in
accordance with international standards and in response to user needs.

Table 1 below illustrates how the project set-up has supported this objective
by targeting all three dimensions of CD through an overall capacity plan:

152 | I S I W S C 2 0 1 9