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Development Cooperation Projects

Development Cooperation Projects

Statistics Poland supports statistical offices in partner countries in building lasting institutional capacities. We share knowledge, tools, and good practices to help ensure that the data produced are reliable, comparable, and up to date — essential for public policy planning, monitoring the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and informing the public.

Poland’s development cooperation principles are defined in the Development Cooperation Act of 16 September 2011 (Journal of Laws 2020, item 1648, as amended). The Act describes development cooperation, financed from Polish public funds, as all activities undertaken by government administration bodies in support of developing countries, in line with the principle of international solidarity.

These activities include:

  • development assistance, aimed at promoting and supporting democracy and civil society, fostering sustainable socio-economic development, taking action to reduce poverty and improve public health, as well as raising education levels and professional qualifications,
  • humanitarian aid, consisting of providing assistance, care, and protection to populations affected by armed conflicts, natural disasters, or other humanitarian crises,
  • support for “global education”, designed to raise awareness and understanding of global challenges and interdependencies between countries.

Statistics Poland operates within the framework of Polish development cooperation, in line with the Multiannual Development Cooperation Programme 2021–2030 “Solidarity for Development.” The programme is aligned with the UN 2030 Agenda and sets geographical and thematic priorities for Polish Aid. It provides support to communities in ten priority countries: four belonging to the Eastern Partnership (Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine) and six located in Africa and the Middle East (Ethiopia, Kenya, Senegal, Tanzania, Lebanon, and Palestine).

Under the “strong institutions” priority, Statistics Poland supports the development of national statistical institutions and the creation of high-quality statistics. Our activities are based on the standards of the European Statistical System and on the principles of open data, ensuring accessibility and transparency of information.

Statistics Poland offers support adapted to partner needs: we provide training, methodological consultancy, webinars, exchanges of experience, study visits and we jointly develop recommendations. We cooperate with statistical offices and other public institutions in partner countries.

Areas of previous cooperation:

  • regional statistics and regional accounts,
  • environmental statistics and environmental accounts,
  • agricultural product balances,
  • business statistics, including small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and business demography,
  • methodology of integrated travel surveys (tourism, border areas).

How we work:

We carry out activities in four stages:

  1. Needs assessment – jointly with the statistical office of the partner country,
  2. Knowledge transfer – training, webinars, consultancy, and expert support,
  3. Developing solutions – manuals, questionnaires, recommendations, sample procedures, and tools,
  4. Establishing and strengthening lasting operational and working-level contacts.

Selected activities and their results

“Improving Statistics Development in Ukraine” (Ukraine, 2021) – support in the field of SME statistics and business demography, as well as the implementation of the EU regulation on structural business statistics. The project aimed to strengthen the institutional capacity of Ukrainian statistics in collecting and compiling data that can serve as a key input for policymaking. The project report was published on the OECD website.

“The use of multi-method surveys as illustrated by the example of integrated surveys on trips” (Ukraine, 2017) – advisory and training activities focused on developing a travel survey system for monitoring socio-economic phenomena in border regions. The resulting publication was prepared for the State Statistics Service of Ukraine.

“Agricultural and forestry statistical surveys as the basis for management improvement of the state policy in the field of agriculture and forestry” (Moldova, 2017) – training and consultancy in agricultural and forestry statistics. The support addressed survey organisation, data collection and processing, and estimating forestry indicators for national and environmental accounts. A publication with recommendations and practical solutions tailored to Moldovan statistics was produced for the National Bureau of Statistics of Moldova.

“Support the development of the Georgian System of Statistics in the field of environmental statistics” (Georgia, 2015) – training and consultancy on organisation, surveys, and international cooperation in environmental statistics. Two publications were prepared, translated into Georgian, and shared with the National Statistics Office of Georgia.

“Support the development of the Georgian System of Statistics in the field of regional statistic. Transfer of knowledge required for conducting analysis of regional development as well as regional accounts compilation” (Georgia, 2014) – training and consultancy on regional statistics (including GIS) and national and regional accounts. Three publications were prepared—data presentation, a compendium of regional accounts, and recommendations for regional analysis—and provided in Georgian.

“Balances of agricultural products as an element necessary for the development of food balance sheets” (Moldova, 2014) – training and consultancy on preparing the necessary data for compiling balance sheets and developing the Methodology for Compiling Agricultural Product Balance Sheets for the National Bureau of Statistics of Moldova. Two meetings of Polish and Moldovan statisticians were organised in Warsaw and Chișinău. The project resulted in a methodological handbook in Polish and Moldovan.

“Support the development of the Georgian System of Statistics in the field of regional accounts. Transfer of knowledge required to carry out calculations of selected macroeconomic categories by territorial breakdown” (Georgia, 2013) – training on practical aspects of compiling regional accounts and conducting statistical surveys. The methodological handbook was updated and recommendations were provided based on Polish and EU practices.

“Support the development of the Georgian System of Statistics in the field of regional accounts. Transfer of knowledge required to create the methodology of calculations of select macroeconomic categories by territorial breakdown” (Georgia, 2011) – organisation of, among other activities, a series of training sessions on the principles of compiling regional accounts and presentation of solutions applied in Polish official statistics. The project resulted in the preparation of recommendations and guidelines, as well as the publication of a methodological handbook on regional accounts.

Significance of the projects:

  • Better public decisions – reliable and comparable data support planning, impact assessment, and accountability of government actions.
  • International comparability – EU and OECD common standards as well as Agenda 2030 (SDGs) monitoring facilitate reporting and cross-country comparison.
  • Transparency and trust – open and clear statistics strengthen the credibility of public administration and support dialogue with citizens and the media.
  • Efficiency and savings – better use of existing data sources reduces duplication of work and supports the secure digitalisation of statistical processes.
  • Project sustainability – project results remain within partner institutions after completion and can be further developed according to their needs.

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