Category: Component4

The training course aimed to build a common understanding of indicators for policy-making and provide knowledge on the links between users and the providers/producers of indicators. The topics covered by this training course were 1) Concept of the policy cycle; 2) Requirements for policy relevant indicators; 3) Indicator development for different policy issues; 4) Supporting the effective use of statistical indicators and 5) Overcoming challenges to develop and maintain policy-relevant indicators.

The majority of participants came from teams of different statistical fields involved in the production of various official statistics in partner countries’ NSIs. The participants asked many questions which indicated that the topics of the training course were relevant and interesting.

The workshop aimed to strengthen or deepen partner countries’ NSI staff’s knowledge in 1) mainstreaming gender perspectives in the national strategies for the development of statistics (NSDS); 2) Measuring Gender Equality: Gender Equality Index; 3) Gender statistics and SDGs; 4) Gender Equality Ruler and Equal Opportunities Ruler and 5) Statistical monitoring mechanisms for gender mainstreaming at municipal level.

The speakers of this workshop were from Paris21, the European Institute of Gender Equality, Statistics Lithuania and the Lithuanian Office of the Equal Opportunities Ombudsperson, where they each shared their experiences in dealing with the above topics.

The majority of participants came from the social statistics unit who are involved in the production of gender data in the partner countries. Statistics Lithuania provided a short-term expert (STE) to facilitate the workshop sessions and who then also presented gender statistics and SDGs in Statistics Lithuania.

The sessions went smoothly within the specified timeframe. The workshop atmosphere showed that the topics of the workshop were relevant and interesting to the participants. Participants posed a number of questions to presenters to clarify issues, especially those related to mainstreaming gender perspectives in national strategies for the development of statistics (NSDS), the calculation of the gender equality index and the experience of Statistics Lithuania in gender statistics.

This workshop was the first activity organised within the framework of STEP project C4.2 “Support SDG policies”, the overall objective of which is to strengthen the process of SDG data availability assessment in partner countries by improving the use of specific methods of assessment. This activity supported the partner countries in assessing SDG data availability on a regular and continuous basis.

This first workshop strengthened the capacity and deepened the knowledge of partner countries’ NSIs in SDG data production, reporting and dissemination. Experience sharing among partner countries was another important outcome of the workshop to help learning from each other. Specifically, the participants learnt to conduct an SDG data availability assessment; follow methodological guidelines to track the progress of SDG indicators; use administrative data to produce SDG indicators; disaggregate SDG indicators and establish an effective SDG monitoring and evaluation system.