Stylized facts of statistical standards of the Statistical Commission of the United Nations

3.1 The categories of statistical standards

Across the statistical domains, the international normative statistical documents can be organized into three main categories: international standards, international guidelines, and compilers’ guides.

The international standards are normative statistical documents that describe concepts, definitions, classifications, statistical units, and principles that support the measurement framework of accounts and tables and related statistics and indicators. They also document the main applications for analytical and policy purposes with new user requirements stimulating continuous statistical research for these types of normative documents. The outcomes of this research are consolidated from time to time in the revisions of the normative statistical documents.

Over time, the international statistical community has made considerable research efforts to ensure that these international standards are mutually coherent and consistent even across the statistical domains of economic, socio-demographic, and environmental statistics. More recently, the revisions of the international standards increasingly include a multidimensional perspective to meet the requirement for the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in making the links between the economy, environment, and society in their output framework of accounts, tables, statistics, and indicators.

When considering the terms used in the publications of the international standards, the nomenclature covers the following terms: systems, recommendations, manuals, classifications, principles and recommendations, and frameworks. Most of the nomenclature depends on the historical development of the international standards and the domain of statistics in scope.

For the domain of economic statistics, a naming convention refers to the macroeconomic standards as systems, such as for the System of National Accounts or the System of Environmental-Economic Accounting, with the international standards related to their sectoral statistics as international recommendations, such as the International Recommendations for Industrial Statistics, the International Recommendations for Energy Statistics, and the International Recommendations for Water Statistics. The normative documents for international trade statistics, the balance of payments statistics and price statistics are historically referred to as manuals, such as the Manual on Statistics of International Trade in Services, the Balance of Payments and International Investment Position Manual, and the Consumer Price Index Manual. The internationally agreed statistical classifications for products, economic activities, and time use apply classifications like the Central Product Classification, the International Standard Industrial Classification of All Economic Activities, and the International Classification of Activities for Time-Use Statistics. The naming convention for the population and housing statistics and vital statistics is principles and recommendations like the Principles and Recommendations for Population and Housing Censuses and the Principles and Recommendations for a Vital Statistics System. Nevertheless, when an internationally agreed set of statistics and indicators are adopted as international standards, they use the term framework like the Global Indicator Framework for the Sustainable Development Goals and the Framework for the Development of Environment Statistics.

When an international statistical standard is adopted by the Statistical Commission, a custodian of the international standard assumes responsibility for:

the overall coordination for the standard, including the update of its methodology

International, regional, and national statistical agencies will create professional communities for international statistical standards and their related documents and instruments for regular consultations and sharing of best practices. At the global level, the Statistical Commission establishes expert groups such as:

committees of experts which are country-led like the Committee of Experts on Environmental-Economic Accounting, the Committee of Experts of Business and Trade Statistics, the Committee of Experts on International Statistical Classifications, and the Committee of Experts on Big Data and Data Science for Official Statistics

These statistical expert groups have terms of references that determine their mandates and governance structures. Through their work programs, these statistical expert groups are instrumental for the research on the update of the international statistical standards and the development and maintenance of training programs, learning and knowledge platforms, databases, code repositories, and communication strategies. The Statistical Commission maintains a rolling multi-year calendar for reporting by the expert groups on their work progress.

Recently, the Statistical Commission has also mandated the establishment of the Network of Economic Statisticians, which is country-led. This Network is to ensure the robustness and relevance of the system of economic statistics through the networking of existing statistical groups on horizontal priorities related to:

data and data solutions for the use of new and more granular data

The networking of existing statistical groups across the statistical domains should promote more agile and nimble working methods to advance horizontal priorities on transformation and innovation relevant for the fast-evolving data and statistical landscape of the global, regional, and national statistical system.

The category of international guidelines also covers formally adopted normative statistical documents recommended for country implementation by the Statistical Commission for either:

providing methodological support for the implementation of the international statistical standard by clarifying and elaborating on the sources and methods for the compilation of particular tables and accounts (like for the supply and use tables, the financial sector accounts, the satellite account for the non-profit and related institutions and volunteer work, and accounting for global value chains);

Ad-hoc expert groups established by the Statistical Commission for a limited duration usually develop the international guidelines compared to standing expert experts responsible as custodians for the development and maintenance of the international statistical standards. Nonetheless, the international guidelines also adhere to a rigorous and robust consultative cycle of mandates, research, drafting, consultations, and publication (see Section 3.2) like the international statistical standards. In most cases, the United Nations Statistics Division is the custodian of the international guidelines and may revise the guidelines, for instance, the Handbook on Non-profit Institutions in the National Accounts of 2003 was updated and endorsed by the Statistical Commission in 2018, as was the original Handbook on Civil Registration and Vital Statistics Systems: Management, Operation, and Maintenance of 1998 in 2018. As for the nomenclature, the titles of the publications of the international guidelines use the term Guidelines or Handbook.

The third category of international normative statistical documents is compilers’ guides. These guides support the implementation of international statistical standards and target the compilers to provide further and more detailed explanations of specific recommendations and practical guidance by describing good or best practices applicable under different circumstances. The compilers’ guides are consistent with the international statistical standard and do not introduce any new recommendations in addition to those in the international statistical standard. Examples of compilers’ guides are the Energy Statistics Compilers Manual and the Manual on Statistics of International Trade in Services Compiler’s Guide. In terms of nomenclature, the compilers’ guides and referred to as Compiler’s Guides and Compilers Manuals.

3.2 The consultative cycle of mandates, research, drafting, consultations, and adoption of statistical standards

For the United Nations System, the convening power is one of its greatest strengths supporting its normative work. It sets norms and standards for peace and security, socio-economic development, human rights, the rule of law, health and environmental sustainability, and others. The UN’s leadership role in normative work remains one of its most vital comparative advantages.

The Statistical Commission of the United Nations is the global statistical system’s highest decision-making body, bringing together the Chief Statisticians from its member states. As the apex entity of the United Nations, it provides the forum for the global statistical community to coordinate international statistical activities, exchange knowledge, and share best practices on statistics and data across all domains and to develop, establish, and maintain standards and norms, tools, and methodologies. Its coordination function extends to the specialized agencies, funds and programs, the regional economic commissions of the United Nations System, and other relevant programs of the UN Secretariat with the request to cooperate fully with the Statistical Commission in coordinating their long-term programs and work in new directions.

The consultative cycle depicted in Fig. 1 for the development or update of the statistical standards and applicable to the three categories of international standards, international guidelines, and compilers’ guides is initiated by a mandate provided to an expert group, which could be standing or ad-hoc expert group. The Statistical Commission could also initiate the exploration of a mandate by creating a Friends of the Chair Group on a particular topic or new directions, which may lead to the request for new international standards. In its most elaborate consultative cycle, the expert group will subsequently prepare a research agenda on issues relevant for the new or the update of existing statistical standards. The expert group forms task teams to prepare the issue papers, also referred to as guidance notes which contain the new recommendations for the statistical standard. Expert group signs off on these issue papers for global consultation with the focal points of the domain experts in each member state. These issue papers reflect best practices from experimentation and testing the recommendations and extensive consultations with users. The consultation can be limited to the expert group members only for the compilers’ guides. Following the global consultation of the issue paper, the paper and related recommendations may be redrafted based on the comments and suggestions received. The purpose of re-drafting of the issue papers and their global consultation iterations is seeking consensus on the new recommendations for the statistical standard. Subsequently, the Statistical Commission is requested to approve the submitted consolidated recommendations for the updating of the statistical standard. Following endorsement, chapters of the statistical standard are drafted, which may be subject to global consultation. Ultimately, the complete document of the statistical standard is submitted to the Commission for adoption as a statistical standard. The Commission always adopts the statistical standard on a consensus basis. Furthermore, the Statistical Commission always accompanies its adoption of the statistical standard by requesting:

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member states to implement the standards in their national statistical system

On a final note, the statistical standards are adopted for implementation on a voluntary basis in contrast with some norms such as conventions which could be legally binding upon ratification and oblige member states to comply with the terms of the norms. Also, the reporting on the implementation of the statistical standard by the member states is on a voluntary basis.