ICstat, “Centro per la Cooperazione Statistica Internazionale - Luigi Bodio” was created as a non-profit association on April 1st, 1996.
The Association was established with the aim of:
• Promoting statistical culture at an international level
• Providing the Italian statistical community with an operational basis able to promote and co-ordinate programmes for technical assistance financed by different institutions, such as the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the European Commission, agencies belonging to the UN system, the World Bank and others.
ICstat is particularly involved in the Balkans and Eastern and Central European countries, in the Mediterranean basin, and – lately - in several French speaking developing African countries.
While offering a wide range of support to National Statistics Institutes and Systems, ICstat matured a more specific expertise in the following areas:
• institutional building: strengthening of statistical institution, their legal basis, organisational structure and strategic planning;
• enhancement and harmonization of official statistics production according to international norms and standards, especially E.U. acquis communautaire;
• transfer of methodologies, including census planning and management, survey and sampling techniques, quality statistics, database management and statistical applications;
• specialized support in the areas of:
-demography: population statistics, social statistics, migration;
-business register, labour statistics, transport statistics, national accounts and the study of non-observed economy, economic poverty analysis, consumer price index and government finance statistics;
-agricultural statistics (farm register), environment statistics (water, waste, air emissions and sustainable development indicators), cartography, remote sensing and GIS.
In
addition ICstat support democratic governance, crisis
prevention and recovery, human rights application
and monitoring systems, post-conflict political
elections and referendum.
The Association operates under the responsibility of a Board of Directors and a Board of Auditors appointed by the General Assembly. ICstat’s international staff is composed of experienced and multi-lingual personnel specialized in various fields of activity. It includes technical experts in charge of the management and monitoring of the projects and desk officers, who are responsible for budgeting and administrative procedures.
Its secretariat and finance section actively contribute to ICstat operations, by providing the required support for the transparency and effectiveness of the implemented projects, according to the rules adopted by the financing institutions.
An IT unit provides support to the adopted information
systems and strategies, and the development and maintenance
of databanks and the web site.
Main Activities
Mediterranean
countries
The Mediterranean basin is a priority geographical area for ICstat who has been strongly committed to the EU funded MEDA/MEDSTAT programme. It has managed three important regional projects concerning transport statistics (MED-Trans), migration statistics (MED-Migr) and the non-observed economy (MED-NOE).
It has been in charge of the first sub-regional project
financed through MEDSTAT, dealing with maritime and
port statistics in the Maghreb countries. IN 2008
ICstat former Director has moved to INS-Tunisie where
he is acting as Twinning Resident Advisor in a two
years Phare Project "Développement du
Système d'Information Statistique sur les Entreprises
(SISE)"; cooperation with other MED countries
is also facing a new impetus.
Transition
countries
Among the other, ICstat has been in charge of projects related to the Population and Housing Census in Albania, the building of the national statistical system in Bosnia-Herzegovina, agriculture statistics in Hungary and in Croatia and adaptation to the acquis communautaire in the field of aviation and maritime statistics in the 10 East and Central European Candidate Countries.
In 2002-2004 at the National Institute of Statistics (INS) of Romania – ICstat has coordinated the technical cooperation of a team of over 50 experts of Italian administration (Ministry of Economics and Finance/ Department of Treasury, ISTAT, Ministry of Environment, APAT) to Romanian counterparts (INS, Ministry of Public Finance, Ministry of Environment, National Commission for Prognosis, National Bank) in the context of Romania Accession to the EU.
Developing
countries
ICstat has a proven track record of collaboration in China, mainly on the non-observed economy. Moreover, ICstat is involved in definition and implementation of some targeted operations, mainly financed by the Italian government, and directed towards the statistical systems of Cape Verde, Eritrea, and Mozambique.
Particularly meaningful the support provided to the Central Commission for Elections of Mozambique, to set up electoral lists and implement the computerization of the electoral process.
Framework Contract EuropeAid/119860/C/SV/multi LOT 11
In September 2007 ICstat received a further two-years extension to provide services for the European Commission under the Framework Contract EuropeAid/119860/C/SV/multi LOT 11: Macro economy, Public finances and Regulatory aspects.
The purpose of the framework contract is to enable the EC, increasingly through local delegations, to access the skills and expertise needed for project activities at short notice and with simplified procedures. Under this framework, ICstat is involved in several projects, carried out in countries like FYROM, Mauritania, Burkina Faso, Central African Republic, Cameroon, RDC, Congo and Chad.
FAO, Food and agricultural Organization of the United Nations
Icstat cooperation with FAO started with a Project Formulation Mission (PFM) on National Food Information System (NFIS) in Eritrea for the FAO/ESAF (Food Security and Agricultural Projects Analysis Service), and continued for FAO/AGLW (Land and Water Development Division) with a review of water-related monitoring activities (including databases and indicators) and the proposal of an innovative federative UN-Water information system.
Since 2006 ICstat has also provided consultancy and logistical support to FAO for the organization of workshops and international conferences concerning development issues such as social protection, food security and farm and non-farm rural activities income.
Furthermore ICstat experts have been involved in the Development of Java-based modules of the FAO GIEWS Workstation that enhance the management and visualization capacity of the package to handle data received by the national statistical services.
