GOV INSTAT SCB 2020 - 2023 Phase 3

The narrative report for 2023 highlights the need to work on the internal management of INSTAT, something that has been highlighted in the evaluation during the current project period. INSTAT and SCB have set up a coordination committee in the form of a project group chaired by INSTAT's deputy DG and made up of the heads of the different project components and the long term adviser from SCB. The group holds monthly meetings in accordance with SCB's model for planning, monitoring, evaluation and learning (PMEL) and the report indicates that the overall planning and the coordination of activities have improved. Some of the results that were communicated in the last report (2023): * continued capacity development of INSTAT staff in the production and improvement of the Harmonised Index of Consumer Prices (CPI) * progress made in implementing an application for calculating foreign trade indices, to get a better picture of the importance of foreign trade for the Malian economy as a whole * staff from the Department of Economic Statistics got basic knowledge in the statistical tool R, as a first step to implement it in the statistical production of statistics * the revision of the methodological guidelines for the household survey * launch of monthly press releases related to the dissemination of the Harmonised Index of Consumer Prices (CPI) On an institutional level, INSTAT management has enhanced its understanding of the need to further develop the planning and monitoring process, leading to the coordination group described above. SCB has also tried to contribute to the national coordination of the statistics system. The "ECOSTAT dialogue group" brings together technical and financial partners in the field of statistics to coordinate actions and the technical organisation of the national statistical system, including INSTAT. Originally, before the pandemic, SCB's long-term advisor was invited to the meetings but has not been able to take part in the deliberations after that, not even after trying to reach the group through INSTAT. This means that SCB has had its overview of the statistics landscape in Mali reduced, and more comprehensive assessments of progress are slightly more challenging to make.

The objectives of the intervention are the following: 1. Strengthen the planning and management of the national statistics system 2. Contribute to further improve products and quality of priority statistics (economic, social and environmental statistics), 3. Increase availability of data for decision making and monitoring of national and international development plans. At the end of the intervention, the following specific results are expected: improvement of the effectiveness of the production process and coordination mechanisms of the national statistics system development of statistics on prices, companies et improvement of the quality of macro economical statistics according to international standards improvement of the reach and quality of social statistics , including key SDG indicators to respond to user's needs improvement of the reach and quality of agricultural and environmental statistics, including SDGs. better availability and friendly dissemination of statistics in accordance with user's needs INSTAT and SCB have revised their joint results framework in order to better reflect the reduction of funds from Sida (in the INSTAT component). The results framework now shows that most of the objectives will still be possible to reach, but there are some achievements that will not be accomplished, such as Update of design and structure of business register. The results framework highlights areas that relate to technical support and financial support, where the former is mostly unchanged whereas the latter is affected to some extent by the reduction of funding.