The 5th Steering Committee meeting of the EU-funded project ,,Technical Assistance to

 Support the National Bureau of Statistics of the Republic of Moldova”

The Steering Committee Meeting of the EU funded project „Technical Assistance to Support the National Bureau of Statistics of the Republic of Moldova” (ParStat project) was organised on 25th January 2022 to present and discuss the activities implemented during the previous semester and the activities planned in the first half of 2022. The project will end in July 2022, and therefore, a Project Exit Strategy was debated and agreed as well. The meeting was attended by representatives of the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), the Ministry of Finance, the Land Relations and Cadastre Agency, the Delegation of the European Union to Moldova, the National Institutes of Statistics of Italy, Poland, and Denmark, as well as experts from the project.

Within the project’s component Strengthening the institutional capacity for the NBS for efficient and effective development of national statistics, the NBS and project experts presented the results achieved:

• the Regulation on the access to microdata for scientific purposes was approved by the NBS and published on the website of the Institution;
• the Regulation on Other Producers of Official Statistics (OPOS) was approved  by the Government;
• several amendments to legal acts related to official statistics were developed;
• 60 NBS staff members successfully passed the final exams of a six-months English language course also supported by the project: they received a certificate of completion according to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFRL), also recognised by the Government of the Republic of Moldova.
• For the same project component, the NBS and project experts also reported on the progress of a fieldwork activities aimed at map updating via data collection on buildings and housing units, using GIS tools and tablets for further establishment of a geodatabase at the NBS for statistical purposes and for preparatory activities of the next population and housing census (planned in 2024). This field data collection activity, in cooperation with the Agency for Land Relations and Cadastre, resulted in a 30 per cent coverage of the territory of the Republic of Moldova.

On the „Alignment of statistical products and services with quality standards” project’s component:

• an online User Satisfaction Survey with the NBS products and services was conducted by the NBS in late 2021 with the support of Polish experts.
• a new NBS website is being under development in line with the national requirements and standards of other websites of European national statistics institutes.

Under the third project component on „Harmonization of statistical production with the EU acquis in statistics”, the following actions were implemented:

• the revision and harmonization with the new EU regulation on European business Statistics of the questionnaire for the annual structural survey, an activity supported by the national institute of Denmark;
• the launch of a pilot survey with a new questionnaire on ICT usage in enterprises, based on the best European practices and recommendations.

Moreover, the NBS staff benefited of several training sessions on:

• EU-SILC, a survey regularly conducted in EU countries to collect data on income and living conditions;
• ESSPROS standards, the EU statistics in social protection;
• education statistics, to further align Moldova’s education statistics to the international standard ISCED 2011 and to standardise data collection between the NBS and the Ministry of Education and Research.

Simultaneously, achievements have been reported in the field of ICT:

• development of a metadata system (as a component part of a future integrated information system covering the whole statistical processes), an activity supported by the Italian National institute of statistics;
• testing of the Computer Assisted Personal Interviewing (CAPI) method for a particular statistical survey (Labour Force Survey) to contribute to further modernisation of data collection operations.

Ms Aurica Butnari, project manager at the European Union Delegation to the Republic of Moldova (EUD) welcomed the proposed exit strategy of the project: „As the project approaches its final stage, the EUD hopes that the activities started within the project will have continuity after its completion as well, within the regular work of the NBS. Despite all external challenges, we consider that the project achieved very good results”.

Mr. Oleg Cara, the General Director of the NBS, mentioned that Project’s activities and achieved results have strengthened NBS institutional capacities and abilities to coordinate other producers of official statistics within the National Statistical System of Moldova, while the Project exit strategy will help to ensure the sustainability of impact after Project’s completion and further ownership from the NBS of the project results. He also thanked the European Union, the ParStat team and the statistical offices from Italy, Poland, and Denmark for their contributions and support. „The large variety of the project’s activities implemented will have a positive impact on the NBS in general”. The head of the Bureau highlighted the effective participation of the Ministry of Finance, Agency for Public Services, Agency for Land Relations and Cadastre as national partners in the project’s implementation.