The European Union supports the improvement of regional statistics in Moldova

Today, February 4 2015, the project “Improved Regional Statistics in the Republic of Moldova” has been launched with an opening conference attended by:

Mr Pirkka TAPIOLA - Head of the European Union Delegation to Modova
Ms Lucia SPOIALĂ - Director General, National Bureau of Statistics
Mr José CERVERA-FERI - Team Leader of the project “Improved regional statistics in Republic of Moldova”
Mr Liviu OBOROC - Deputy Ministry for Regional Development and Construction

Good quality regional statistics are necessary for the design, monitoring and evaluation of regional development policies, helping the policy-makers to better target social needs, identify economic development opportunities, monitor environmental goals and allocate public investments. Regional statistics also serve socio-economic research, inform public opinion, and the data necessary to compile regional accounts (regional GDP), providing major macro-economic indicators to monitor the development of Moldovan regions.

The goal of EU assistance through the project “Improved Regional Statistics in the Republic of Moldova” is to strengthen the capacity of the producers of statistics, mainly the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) to improve the methodological aspects of regional statistics as well as their dissemination. It also aims at creating capacity in the main policy-makers (Ministry of Regional Development and Construction- MRDC, Regional Development Agencies-RDAs, local governments) to access, use and interpret regional statistics.

The project, officially started in November 2014, is implemented by a consortium led by GFA (Germany) with DevStat (Spain), AAM (Hungary) and the Statistical Office of Slovakia and will last until November 2016. A total budget of EUR 2 million will be provided for its implementation.

Technical activities

The project will be implemented through a series of technical activities involving the National Bureau of Statistics, the MRDC and RDAs. It consists of a “design” phase and a “development” one.

During the “design phase”, experts from EU Member States and the Republic of Moldova will establish a catalogue of regional statistics, compared to standards and best practices of the EU, in order to identify concrete methodological improvements to be done. At the same time, the demand for statistical information from regional policy-makers will be assessed, so that the NBS (and other statistics producers) can better satisfy users’ needs. This is particularly relevant given that a Regional Development Strategy has to be prepared by the Moldovan Government in 2015 for the period until 2020. The relations between users and producers of regional statistics will be strengthened by a series of joint workshops and consultations. IT systems supporting the production and use of regional statistics will be reviewed.

During the “development phase”, capacity building activities will target the staff of NBS, MRDC, and RDAs. Improved IT tools will be provided to the MDRC for the monitoring and evaluation of regional programmes. Regional GDP will be compiled. A full training programme, including proposals for increasing the presence of regional statistics in higher education programmes, will be elaborated. Improved dissemination of regional statistics, including cartographic visualizations, will be also implemented.

In addition, the NBS will be supported to design an optimization plan for its territorial structure, in line with the recommendations of Eurostat.

• Agenda (in Romanian version)
• Presentation .pdf
• Photo gallery