International principles governing official statistics at the national level: are they relevant for the statistical work of international organisations as well?
Abstract: On the basis of national official statistics and sometimes other sources, intergovernmental organisations have produced and disseminated international statistics with a quasi-official status. In view of the growing international links of markets, media and governments, demand for international statistics will grow and their relevance for decision-makers and actors in the markets is likely to increase. The institutional framework governing the production and dissemination of international statistics does not reflect this growing importance, however: statistics is still treated as instrument for the other tasks of the organisation in the first right, and not as a multi-purpose and multi-user activity in its own right as in the case for national official statistics in a modern society. If compared to international standards such as the UN Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics or the IMF Special Dissemination Standards, statistical production of international organisations shows deficiencies in important elements such as impartial access, professional independence as regards decisions on methods and concepts, full documentation of sources and methods, or full documentation of the rules governing decision-making on statistical issues within international organisations. Surprisingly, this mismatch between the national level, where compliance with the above-mentioned international standards has shown important progress, and the quasi unchanged frameworks at the level of intergovernmental organisations have escaped the attention of statisticians and users up to now. The paper argues that it is time to start a catch-up process to gradually bring the international organisations closer in line with the framework of official statistics, and proposes some first steps. Institutional changes for clearly separating statistics from policy-oriented functions of these organisations as is the case at national level will be necessary for enabling international organisations to assume a more active role in international policy while at the same time being a credible producer and disseminator of impartial international statistics. Failing to start such a process risks to undermine the credibility not only of international statistics, but, at a later stage, also of the national inputs on which international statistics are based.
