International standards for compilation of statistics: The gap between standards adoption and standards implementation

Abstract

The United Nations Statistical Commission and the United Nations Statistics Division have for decades played a signal role in developing and adopting frameworks and classifications intended to promote the comparability of national statistics. This paper looks briefly at the development of international statistical frameworks and classifications and identifies impediments countries face in implementing three of them – the System of National Accounts, the International Standard Industrial Classification, and the Principles and Recommendations for a Vital Statistics System. (Information on the difficulties that countries face is taken primarily from documents prepared for meetings of the United Nations Statistical Commission.) The paper considers the implications of countries' failing to adopt international frameworks and classifications, and concludes by posing some questions about how to improve international implementation of frameworks and classifications as data are increasingly used to measure progress of countries.