Praia Group on Governance Statistics

 

Dedicated to establishing international standards and methods for producing statistics on key governance dimensions.

Mandate

Since its establishment in 2015 by the United Nations Statistical Commission, the Praia Group on Governance Statistics (the Praia Group) has been developing international standards and methods for compiling statistics on various governance dimensions. The Praia Group was created out of the international recognition that governance statistics are a critical area of statistics that lack the maturity of other statistics and are underinvested in most parts of the world.

• The primary focus is to bridge gaps in governance statistics by convening National Statistical Offices (NSOs) and experts around developing new methodologies, raising awareness about the value of governance statistics, and disseminating relevant tools and good practices. The Praia Group maintains a strong emphasis on the capacity-building of NSOs to enhance the availability and quality of governance statistics.
• The Praia Group has a strong and sustained engagement from 100+ members across diverse national contexts under the lead of the Secretariat, the National Institute of Statistics, Cabo Verde.

For the Praia Group’s second term (2020-2025), the United Nations Statistical Commission requested the Praia Group to further improve methodologies and standardization and to support National Statistical Offices around the world in implementing those methodologies.

Governance: Domain of Official Statistics

Governance is now a domain of official statistics in the revised Classification of Statistical Activities (CSA 2.0), on par with Economic statistics and Demographic and Social statistics, and NSOs urgently need standardized methodologies to start producing comparable statistics in this area.

How is the Praia Group carrying out its mandate?

Following the request of the UN Statistical Commission, the Praia Group established two Task Teams to advance statistical methodologies on two less-developed dimensions, namely Participation in Political and Public Affairs and Non-Discrimination and Equality. 

• The Task Team on Participation in Political and Public Affairs is led by Statistics Norway and supported by UNDP and UN Women.
• The Task Team on Non-Discrimination and Equality is led by INEI Peru and Statistics Finland and supported by UNDP and OHCHR.

• These Task Teams aim to develop two products: an internationally harmonized survey module and guidance on the use of administrative data for producing statistics on Participation and Discrimination.

  
   

• 27 NSOs volunteered to test the two survey modules on Participation and Discrimination at various stages during 2023-25.

• The Praia Group published the first-ever compilation of recommendations on how to measure 8 dimensions of governance, the Handbook on Governance Statistics (2020).
  • This Handbook is based on a framework that includes eight dimensions of governance: non-discrimination and equality, participation in political and public affairs, openness, access to and quality of justice, responsiveness, absence of corruption, trust, safety and security.
• During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Praia Group published a Guidance Note on Governance Statistics focusing on governance information needs that arise during times of complex crises. 

Resources

• Handbook on Governance Statistics
• Governance Statistics in the COVID-19 Era (in French and Spanish)
• What’s Next for Governance Statistics
• Article in the Statistical Journal of the IOAS: Now is the time to close gaps in governance statistics

Other documents and information about the Group’s activities are available on the Praia Group’s website

Praia Group Steering Committee

• National Institutions

  National Statistical Offices of Cabo Verde, Finland, Mexico and Nigeria. 

• Regional and International Institutions
  UNDP’s Global Policy Centre for Governance, OHCHR, UNODC, the Mo Ibrahim Foundation, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and the World Bank. 

Contact

To contact the Praia Group Secretariat, hosted by the National Statistical Office of Cabo Verde (INECV), please write to [email protected]