Less money for statistics may lead to failed programs–NSCB

MANILA, Phlippines – If the government invests less on statistics, the National Statistical Coordination Board (NSCB) warned that there would be a higher chance that government programs and projects would suffer from poor targeting, which causes leakages and exclusions.

In his online column “Statistically Speaking,” NSCB Secretary-General Dr. Romula Virola said focus and proper targeting of programs would be more responsive to the needs of Filipinos if there is lower-level disaggregation of information that includes the generation of sectoral statistics to support them.

This lower-level disaggregation of information, or the generation of sectoral statistics, requires more funds because this generates detailed statistics. If regular data gathering determines the number and gender included in the research, detailed statistics would include their occupation, age group, location and other similar data.

“Less resources for statistics will mean less statistics and lower quality statistics that can be used for program and policy intervention. If solutions to problems are not based on sound statistics, the solutions may work, but greater are the chances they won’t,” Virola said via SMS.

Virola said Congress recently slashed P9.7 million from the proposed budget of the NSCB of P93.9 million. The amount should have covered funds to conduct small-area poverty estimates, which could help in various antipoverty programs not only in the National Capital Region (NCR) but the entire Philippine archipelago, as well.

He said with the “decentralization of planning” and the need for more “focused program and policy interventions” to curb poverty, these small-area poverty estimates would have been able to provide the statistical boost needed to make local and regional antipoverty programs targeted.

“It is thus unfortunate that while other countries, particularly in Africa, have begun to recognize the important role of statistics on the development agenda, the Senate decided to cut the NSCB 2010 budget, potentially curtailing the initiatives of the NSCB to help in poverty alleviation by producing small-area estimates of poverty statistics, and to promote evidence-based decision-making in the government and the private sector that will enhance the competitiveness of the Philippines among knowledge-based economies of the Third Millennium,” Virola said in his column.

The government has already made programs that have been deemed not well-targeted. One of these programs which suffered from significant leakage and exclusion was the National Food Authority’s (NFA) Rice Prog-ram.

Based on the preliminary results of a study on the impact of the global economic crisis on households, led by De La Salle University economist Dr. Celia Reyes, which used the Community-based Monitoring System, showed that 52.5% of those who availed themselves of the program were nonpoor and 37.1% of all poor households were unable to access the program.

“The highest leakage is reported for urban NCR, while the largest exclusion rate is observed in urban areas outside the NCR. This also reflects poor targeting of the program,” the study stated.

Further, in a previous slide presentation, titled “Poverty Reduction Through Conditional Cash Transfers” released by World Bank Country Sector Coordinator for Human Development Jehan Arulpragasam, the bank said while there are numerous cash/in kind transfer programs for the poor, targeting was “extremely poor” and the task of targeting programs has become susceptible to political intervention.

The Washington-based lending agency said an example would be the food-for-school program of the government, which the bank said only a third of the program is estimated to go to the poor. –Cai U. Ordinario, Business Mirror