Page 278 - Invited Paper Session (IPS) - Volume 2

IPS243 Arbab A. K
2. Strategic Planning for Agriculture and Rural Statistics (SPARS)
SPARS is a Long Term Strategy to improve Agriculture and Rural Statistics
(ARS) at the national level which derives its basis from National Strategy for
the Development of Statistics (NSDS). This is the building block of NSDS and
can be linked to development Planning process of the country with the
following objectives
 Understanding the impact of agriculture policy on statistical priorities
 Identifying data needs, gaps, deficiencies, duplications and
inconsistencies
 Defining future short- and long-term statistical programs and
interventions
SPARS design stages: The SPARS design process includes following three
phases
1. Launching/Preparing Phase: which includes the Understanding,
acknowledging, committing, Building constituency, Integrating the
SPARS in the NSDS and Roadmap
2. Assessment Phase: Detail assessment of the key sectors of Agriculture
and Rural Statistics is conducted and IdCA report is prepared during
this phase.
3. Planning Phase: This phase includes the development of Vision and
Mission, Strategic Goals and Outputs and Action Plan with financial
and Monitoring frameworks.
Priority areas identified as a result of the SPARS process:
The major technical areas covered in SPARS and their status during
implementation of the project are highlighted below.
1. Institutional Development and coordination mechanism
One of the most important objective of the SPARS was either to establish
an institutional setup, where it was non-existent or develop the capacity of the
institutions if they already existed. Following are the major milestones
achieved on this front during the SPARS implementation.
 Active high level steering committees (led by secretary or director
general), established in almost all project implementing countries. The
committees has as representatives the major producers and users of
agriculture statistics at the country level.
 Functional Technical Working groups established in almost all project
implementing countries which includes the members of major
producers of agriculture statistics including Federal and Provincial
Government i.e. NSOs, MOAs, other ministries and the data users i.e.
Academia, Research Institutions and civil society s.
 Establishment of Ministry of Statistics in Pakistan

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