Page 202 - Special Topic Session (STS) - Volume 2

STS479 Sabit A.H et al.
both the need to ensure local relevance as well as consistency with the global
standards, but also the broader budget constraints. In describing the potential
of the Data Revolution to transform statistical offices in low and middle income
countries, commentators have noted the large investments that will be needed
in statistics to support both the monitoring and reporting on SDGs (e.g. MacFeely
and Barnat 2017, OECD 2017, Paris21 2019). As MacFeely notes, estimates for
additional support for the 77 lower-income countries range from $1US billion to
$1.25US billion per annum; equating to between 13 -18 $USD million per country
per year just on SDG monitoring and reporting. GCC countries are higher income
countries, yet they too must prioritise government spending. While detailed
budgets are not available, it is unlikely that statistics budgets, even including the
budgets in other ministries, will come close to the types of additional investment
sought for SDG monitoring in lower-income countries.
An additional challenge is the need for local relevance, while meeting the
international requirements for disaggregation noted earlier. While the
multiple disaggregations requirements for international reporting meet many
local requirements, they do not meet all local requirements. For example, the
specific population distribution in the GCC, with high proportion of non-
citizens, mean other detailed disaggregations are required. A related issue is
that Goals, Targets and Indicators have all been prepared and published in
English. As the Monitoring framework becomes available in other languages –
e.g. Arabic – the language of the GCC; it is likely that there will be additional
local requirements.
These factors means that there is a strong need for regional cooperation in
the modernization of statistical systems in the region. The 2015-2020 GCC
Statistical Strategy has provided the framework for this cooperation, including
SDGs; and builds on the existing high level of institutional cooperation and
cooperation.

6. Conclusion
This paper has discussed the role that GCC-Stat has played in supporting
the modernization of the GCC statistical system, with particular focus on
provision of SDG indicators. As the paper has shown, GCC-Stat facilitated
modernization activities have included statistical methodological leadership in
SDGs, as well as other statistical priority projects, which provide data for SDGs.
As part of a broader project to enhance the production of administrative based
indicators, GCC-Stat is leading work to identify administrative data that can be
used to provide a greater range of indicators, including SDGs. In addition, GCC-
Stat has recently initiated a project to provide an Integrated End to End solution
for data management and dissemination.
The paper has highlighted the importance of regional, in this case South-
South, cooperation, as a way of working together to modernize statistical

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