Document of The World Bank FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY Report No: ICR00004801 IMPLEMENTATION COMPLETION AND RESULTS REPORT TF 0A4794 ON A SMALL GRANT IN THE AMOUNT OF USD (.26) MILLION TO THE Institut National de la Statistique et de l'Analyse Economique (INSAE) FOR Benin Statistical Capacity Building (P154314) September 8, 2020 Poverty And Equity Global Practice West and Central Africa Region Regional Vice President: Ousmane Diagana Country Director: Coralie Gevers Regional Director: Carolina Paramo-Sanchez Practice Manager: Andrew L. Dabalen Task Team Leader(s): Felicien Donat Edgar Towenan Accrombessy ICR Main Contributor: Felicien Donat Edgar Towenan Accrombessy, Benita Mahinou, Senait Kassa Yifru ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS ASD African Statistics Day AWP Annual Work Plan CAPI Computer Assisted Personalized Interview CD Country Director CFAF CFA Franc CPF Country Partnership Framework DDI Data Documentation Initiative FM Financial Management FMS Financial Management Specialist GDP Gross Domestic Product GRM Grant Report Monitoring GSPR Growth Strategy for Growth Reduction INSAE National Institute for Statistics and Economic Analysis (Institut National de la Statistique et de l’Analyse Economique) INSEED National Institute of Statistics and Economic and Demographic Studies (Institut National de la Statistique et des Etudes Economiques et Démographiques) NADA National Data Archiving NGO Non-Governmental Organization NSDS National Strategy for Development of Statistics NSO National Statistics Office NSS National Statistical System PDO Project Development Objective PIU Project Implementation Unit RNA National Agricultural Census (Recensement National de l’Agriculture) SAM Social Accounts Matrix SDGs Sustainable Development Goals STEP Systematic tracking of Exchanges in Procurement TF Trust Fund TFSCB Trust Fund for Statistical Capacity Building ToC Theory of Change TTL Task Team Leader WAEMU West African Economic and Monetary Union TABLE OF CONTENTS DATA SHEET ....................................................................... ERROR! BOOKMARK NOT DEFINED. I. PROJECT CONTEXT AND DEVELOPMENT OBJECTIVES ....................................................... 4 II. OUTCOME ...................................................................................................................... 9 III. KEY FACTORS THAT AFFECTED IMPLEMENTATION AND OUTCOME ................................ 10 IV. BANK PERFORMANCE, COMPLIANCE ISSUES, AND RISK TO DEVELOPMENT OUTCOME .. 11 V. LESSONS LEARNED AND RECOMMENDATIONS .............................................................. 12 ANNEX 1. RESULTS FRAMEWORK AND KEY OUTPUTS ........................................................... 14 ANNEX 2. PROJECT COST BY COMPONENT ........................................................................... 20 ANNEX 3. RECIPIENT, CO-FINANCIER AND OTHER PARTNER/STAKEHOLDER COMMENTS ...... 21 The World Bank Benin Statistical Capacity Building (P154314) DATA SHEET BASIC INFORMATION Product Information Project ID Project Name P154314 Benin Statistical Capacity Building Country Financing Instrument Benin Investment Project Financing Original EA Category Revised EA Category Not Required (C) Not Required (C) Organizations Borrower Implementing Agency Institut National de la Statistique et de l'Analyse Institut National de la Statistique et de l'Analyse Economique (INSAE) Economique Project Development Objective (PDO) Original PDO The project development objective (PDO) is to strengthen the capacity of the National Statistical System (NSS) to implement the National Strategy for Development of Statistics (NSDS2) through the production of better, more accessible and relevant statistics. Page 1 of 20 The World Bank Benin Statistical Capacity Building (P154314) FINANCING FINANCE_TBL Original Amount (US$) Revised Amount (US$) Actual Disbursed (US$) Donor Financing TF-A4794 264,040 264,040 259,659 Total 264,040 264,040 259,659 Total Project Cost 264,040 264,040 259,659 KEY DATES Approval Effectiveness Original Closing Actual Closing 31-Mar-2017 07-Apr-2017 28-Feb-2019 28-Feb-2020 RESTRUCTURING AND/OR ADDITIONAL FINANCING Date(s) Amount Disbursed (US$M) Key Revisions 01-Mar-2019 0.07 Change in Results Framework Change in Loan Closing Date(s) Change in Implementation Schedule KEY RATINGS Outcome Bank Performance M&E Quality Moderately Satisfactory Satisfactory Substantial RATINGS OF PROJECT PERFORMANCE IN ISRs Actual No. Date ISR Archived DO Rating IP Rating Disbursements (US$M) 01 12-Feb-2019 Moderately Satisfactory Moderately Satisfactory 0.07 Page 2 of 20 The World Bank Benin Statistical Capacity Building (P154314) ADM STAFF Role At Approval At ICR Regional Vice President: Makhtar Diop Ousmane Diagana Country Director: Pierre Frank Laporte Coralie Gevers Director: Carolina Sanchez Carolina Sanchez Practice Manager: Andrew L. Dabalen Andrew L. Dabalen Felicien Donat Edgar Towenan Felicien Donat Edgar Towenan Task Team Leader(s): Accrombessy Accrombessy ICR Contributing Author: Massanvi Benita Mahinou Page 3 of 20 The World Bank Benin Statistical Capacity Building (P154314) I. PROJECT CONTEXT AND DEVELOPMENT OBJECTIVES Context 1. Benin is a small sub-Saharan African coastal country with a population of almost 12 million people in 2020. During the last three years, Benin has been one of the fastest growing economies in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) that has made important economic and political gains over the last two decades to become a lower middle-income country in 2020. In 2018 poverty measured at the national level stood 38.5 percent with gap of 12.8 percentage points between urban (31.4) and rural (44.2) areas. 2. The Statistics Act of 2000 assigns to the National Institute of Statistics and Economic Analysis (INSAE) the responsibility to provide national statistics and to co-ordinate official statistics production from line ministries or sectors. The Benin National statistics office (NSO) is autonomous, according to the law, and is expected to provide technical assistance, including training, capacity building, and the coordination to the whole statistical system. 3. The NSO has faced key challenges in coordinating the National Statistical System. The production of timely and reliable (national and subnational) statistics remains limited due to, among other reasons, poor institutional and technical capacity and lack of funding for major statistical work at both the national and sectoral levels. The lack of funding for the NSO also hampers the broader coordination effort within sub-systems at the sectoral level as well as the coordination function of the NSO. As a consequence of the lack of financial resources, the quality of statistical work within the NSS is weak, particularly at the sector level. 4. The NSO set up the NSDS-2 as a framework for strengthening statistical capacity. The main goal of the NSDS-2 is "Having a National Statistical System (NSS) functioning and producing reliable statistics, consistent and available in all areas and on time, based on user requirements for a better planning and harmonious development of Benin." 5. The project was developed to provide capacity building to official statistics as was committed to in the Benin Country Partnership Framework (CPF 2013-2017). The activities to be financed by the TFSCB were consistent with the Government of Benin’s priority policy areas in the NSDS-2. The GoB was committed to, and currently coordinating with other development partners, joint efforts for statistical capacity building. The New Statistics Act and the planned National Fund for the Development of Statistics reinforced the GoB and its partners and donor commitments. 6. The project has reinforced and improved the role of the NSO as the leader of the National Statistics System through the Secretary of the National Statistical Council (CNS) by building its capacity in socioeconomic sectors. The project was intended to strengthen the NSO’s ability to monitor socioeconomic indicators, to archive national and sub- national datasets, etc. It was also supported the improvement of human resources through training, data dissemination, improvement of socioeconomic modeling, and development of a statistical culture. 7. Finally, the project strongly supported the Bank’s twin goals of ending extreme poverty and ensuring shared prosperity and facilitates the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) agenda setting. The development of national statistical capacity and data quality in Benin is in line with the focus on measurable results toward the World Bank objectives of ending extreme poverty by 2030 and promoting shared prosperity. The poverty mapping work provide key Page 4 of 20 The World Bank Benin Statistical Capacity Building (P154314) indicators toward this end. It also contributed to improve the availability and reliability of important statistics related to the SDGs, at the lowest geographic/administrative levels. It also contributed to inform the next GSPR. Project Development Objectives (PDOs) 8. The project development objective (PDO) is to strengthen the capacity of the National Statistical System (NSS) to implement the National Strategy for Development of Statistics (NSDS2) through the production of better, more accessible and relevant statistics. Key Expected Outcomes and Outcome Indicators 9. The key results of the project were assessed through the PDO level indicators based on i) capacity building indicators, ii) statistical quality indicators, and iii) dissemination indicators. (a) Capacity building of the NSS and NSO (i) Capacity building trainings for two promotions of “Agents Techniques de la Statistique�: 50 students to be trained in basic statistics. (ii) Trainings for NSO and NSS staff members on thematic related to relevant statistics and poverty measurement/analysis tools. 20-to 25 staff to be trained on 8 different courses. (b) Improved statistics (iii) The updated Social and Accounts Matrix (SAM) to be completed and released; (iv) The poverty maps to be produced and released; (v) The Agriculture Price Index to be constructed and released; (c ) Improved dissemination (vi) 12 datasets are archived and released; (vii) 2 outreach training sessions for NGOs, Press and Media are held; (viii) 2 workshops are organized during Statistics Day events. Components 10. The project had 4 main components, totaling an amount of USD 264,040. These components aimed to support: i) Training for staff and students; ii) Statistical production improvement; iii) Improving dissemination of statistical production, and iv) Project management including Coordination and Audit. More specifically, these components are detailed below. Component 1: Capacity building of the NSS and NSO 11. The objective of this component was to strengthen the technical capacity of human resources within the National Statistical System. More specifically, this component supported the following activities: (a) Basic training on statistics to NSS employees 12. Training of staff/students: This component has two main activities. This first activity consists of training two promotions of 20/25 students in the basics or fundamentals of statistics to be employed by the NSS. This consisted to Page 5 of 20 The World Bank Benin Statistical Capacity Building (P154314) the training in 09/12 months of candidates selected by the Ministry of civil servants, and having the level of at least 4 years of secondary school in Benin education system. The degree owned after this training is called “Agent Technique de la Statistique� and is a standard degree well known in the francophone statistics schools. Once recruited, the trained students be able to participate to administrative statistics production in line ministries as well as to survey implementation. The NSDS has diagnosed the lack of this type of staff member. 13. At implementation: One promotion of 26 students enrolled in this training was trained over a period of 2 academic years at a higher level of education (baccalaureate + 2). The students received both theorical and practical notions and learning from experienced teachers and practitioners. They received the degree of “Adjoints Techniques de la Statistique� (AD). This is a level of practitioners is better demanded by the statistical system. The first year of training scheduled for October 2017 started on February 05, 2018 with the 26 students. In nine months, 23 subjects were taught over 785 hours. Twenty-four students were admitted to the second year of training. One student was failed for insufficient results and one drop out was noted during the training. The activities of the Training Center were closed on December 15, 2018, at the end of the teachers' council. The second academic year also covered nine months with at the end a practical activity of survey implementation conducted by the students. At the end of the training, the 24 students graduated and received their degree after presentation of the thesis. (b) Training of NSO and NSS staff on technical tools, including methodology and poverty measurement/analysis 14. The second group of activities consist of 8 training workshops for NSO and NSS staff members to improve their capacity in statistics and related fields such as poverty analysis, sampling methods, CAPI techniques, etc. All these trainings leverage statistical production in the country. 15. At implementation: Only two trainings workshop were held. They were delivered by the TTL on Poverty measurement and analysis using ADePT (March 26-30, 2018) and on Poverty mapping illustrated with PovMap (December 04-07, 2018). Approximately 60 staff members from the NSO and the NSS attended these two “one week� courses. The other six trainings could not be executed even after project restructuring, where only two training workshops were conducted. The reason was that the NSO had difficulties to identify the consultants and to propose a contract satisfactory to the Bank as well as, the timing didn’t match the Bank trainers agenda to present the trainings on stata and CAPI. 16. The project had been restructured in February 2019 with a one-year project closing date extension. The proposed Level 2 restructuring was to enable the project to fully implement all planned activities based on the revised action plan. 17. Some of the major activities to be implemented in the project duration: workshop of the NSO staff members on “Theory of Change� (ToC); 18. At implementation: This activity has been organized in February 2020. All the NSO staff members participated and it allowed them to know about ToC and to learn to take it into account their day to day activities. The project also funded the acquisition of two illuminated signs as part of ASD 2018 and the participation of the Director General of the NSO to World Bank and IMF the 2019 Annual meetings in Washington where he met the highest authorities of Bank (Practice Manager, Country Director, Vice President, etc.) to present the performance of the TFSCB and his interest in having a more structured and important Statistics project. Page 6 of 20 The World Bank Benin Statistical Capacity Building (P154314) Component 2: Improved statistical production 2.1 Modeling Structure Set-up 19. This activity supported the following: i) an index of agricultural production prices; ii) equipping the Modeling Center; and iii) elaboration of a new and updated SAM for forecast and socioeconomic modeling. The new SAM offer the opportunity to produce more reliable and update macro/micro simulations, forecasts and analysis on the economy. 20. At implementation: This activity was dropped because the survey supporting SAM preparation was outdated and that later the NSO started a GDP rebasing process. 2.2 Poverty Mapping 21. Poverty mapping: This component aims to undertake a comprehensive poverty mapping exercise, including training of staff (transfer of competencies and knowledge/skills), dissemination, etc. In fact, the EMICoV household surveys allow poverty numbers at the disaggregated level of Communes (the country is divided into the following administrative levels: “Départements/Communes/Arrondissements/Villages ou Quartiers de ville�). But the country was engaged in a decentralization process since the years 2000 (the first municipal election was held in 2003). Getting disaggregated poverty data allow the decision makers in the field of decentralization to have adapted tools for project beneficiaries targeting (geographic targeting), to inform policy, project monitoring/evaluation, etc. 22. At implementation: After the project restructuring, the NSO updated this activity to comply with the new WAEMU household survey. The NSO realized a pseudo-census compatible with the WAEMU harmonized household survey that is expected to allow a representativeness at the level of the communes, the second geographic administrative level of the country. The survey took place during the last quarter of 2019 and ended in February 2020. Unfortunately, the NSO could not cover the 1336 strata (each stratum counts 24 households): 357 strata have not been surveyed. In terms of communes, 44 are completed while 18 are partially covered and 15 are not all started. 2.3 The Agriculture Price Index 23. At implementation: This activity started with a first data collection which took place from February 21st to 28th, 2018 in collaboration with the Technical Monitoring and Support Unit for Food Security Management (ONSASA) in 50 food product markets and 15 markets. of cattle. In addition, the data processing phase started with the data entry which covered the period from March 29th to May 29th, 2018, i.e. two months and mobilized 04 data entry agents. The phase of calculating the indices followed. These clues should be published on the INSAE website, but this was not the case. Component 3: Improved dissemination 24. The third component consists in a set of dissemination, improved data access and outreach activities, mainly: 3.1 Expand data archiving 25. This activity consisted to continue the NSO efforts to organize the major household surveys metadata and microdata under Data Documentation Initiative (DDI) format (previously the NADA;), to store them through a secured platform, and to allow free access to users under a clear Access to information Policy. 26. At implementation: The NSO benefited from a study tour in Togo. The study mission on the NADA platform took place from February 26 to March 2, 2018 at the premises of the National Institute of Statistics and Economic and Demographic Studies (INSEED) in Lomé, Togo. Two INSAE staff members participated and met with the Head of IT Service Page 7 of 20 The World Bank Benin Statistical Capacity Building (P154314) and the Head of Documentation and Archives, who are responsible for managing the NADA platform. Following this study trip, the Directorate of Information Processing and Publications organized from November 26 to December 1, 2018 the NADA workshop whose objective was to implement the NADA platform on the INSAE website. Regarding the workshop to set up the OPEN DATA platform, it was also organized from October 15 to 20, 2018. 3.2. Dashboards and yearbooks 27. This set of activities allow the NSO to produce a socioeconomic indicators dashboard and statistical yearbooks make them accessible publicly. 28. At implementation: The NSO canceled this activity because inputs were not received on time from NSS stakeholders. 3.3 Outreach 29. Finally, the project planned a framework for the NSO to undertake outreach activities including, training of NGOs members and journalists, and celebrating the African Statistical Day through workshops, and special events. 30. At implementation: The NSO canceled the activity on training of NGOs and journalists because of lack of preparation and also because the attendees mainly the journalists didn’t comply with the training requirements. 31. Regarding ASD, only one was organizing in November 2019. During a workshop, the celebration of the twenty- eighth (28th) African Statistics Day (ASD) on the theme “High quality official statistics to ensure transparency, good governance and inclusive development�, offered the opportunity to the NSO and the whole NSS to release and disseminate the results of several surveys and studies. Among others, the following presentations were delivered: i) Adhesion to the Data Dissemination Special Standards: Quality approach and good governance; ii) African Statistics Law: Reforms of the NSS Legal and Institutional framework; iii) Dynamics of household living conditions in Benin; iv) National Census of Agriculture (RNA): Issues and Challenges; v) New architectural framework to collecting living conditions of households; vi) Survey-to-survey imputation method: Implication on the new household surveys system. Component 4: Project management 32. The project management component mainly consisted to overall coordination activities, including administrative and financial organization, preparation of meetings, and finally, the audit of the TFSCB. 33. At implementation: Two activities had been included in this component and were related to the periodic monitoring of project activities as well as to carry out an audit at the end of the project. The follow-up of the 2018 Annual Work Plan (AWP) was ensured during this period but with delay. It consisted of the planning of activities, support to the technical departments, the compilation of activity implementation reports and the drafting of the activity report of the 2018 AWP. In addition to the activity relating to the follow-up of the 2019 AWP, the project audit was the second activity. The audit was carried out under the supervision of the Supreme Court. This institution was also responsible for recruiting the audit firm. The project was audited at the satisfaction of World bank requirements and the report of the Audit is filled. 34. An equivalent of twenty percent of the TFSCB financing was directed to equipment purchasing: some basic office support equipment will be purchased to support the functioning of the training center; Page 8 of 20 The World Bank Benin Statistical Capacity Building (P154314) 35. At implementation: The NSO acquired some teaching materials and some computer equipment and office supply for the benefit of the Training Center. This included laptops, scanner/printers, video projectors, ink, paper, and other office or light computer supplies that allow the NSO to improve its working conditions and deliver the training in a better environment. II. OUTCOME Assessment of Achievement of Each Objective/Outcome (I) Capacity building of the NSS and NSO 36. Two types of outcomes were achieved under this objective of capacity building of the statistical system. On one hand, 24 well trained Ads received scholarship and followed successfully the training, improving the potential of the NSS to adapt human resources ready to contribute to data collection from preparation to implementation and analysis and report dissemination. That is a higher level than what was expected at the preparation of the project. Also, they are all students and not civil servants in the statistical system which allow them to dedicate plenty of their time to the courses. During the final implementation completion mission, the Bank team had the opportunity to exchange with delegates of the trainees who acknowledged the quality of the training and urged the Bank to continue providing support to this type of training, among others. 37. Similarly, the mission met some of the participants of the two training workshops sessions on poverty measurement and analysis with ADePt and PovMap. They confirmed again the quality and the great value of these training, because it was the first time a critical mass of NSO and NSS statisticians could have a good understanding of poverty concepts, and can use free and ready to use tools to produce their own analysis and report. They made a request for free access to household data, to allow them easily to apply the notions they learned. 38. The training on Toc also reinforced the NSO staff to present a project document, reports and other conceptual works. 39. Both the NSO and the Bank team regret for the cancellation of the number of trainings due to lack of preparation and dysfunction of the NSO procurement team at the beginning of the project. (II) Improved statistics 40. For the first time the NSO developed to produce agricultural products index. This is a very useful information that helps producers to negotiate on the food and cattle markets. Even though at the project restructuring, some activities were cancelled, such as the production of Social Accounts Matrix (SAM) or statistics yearbook. On the other hand, the restructuring allowed the poverty mapping activity to collect key social indicators representative at the Commune level providing valuable source of information to decision makers in a country where decentralization process is well advanced. Unfortunately, due to late field work, the NSO could not cover all the 77 communes. (III) Improved dissemination Page 9 of 20 The World Bank Benin Statistical Capacity Building (P154314) 41. The study tour organized had reinforced the capacity of the NSO staff members to carry a NADA type activity. Following this training, a workshop attended by the NSO and NSS staff members allow them to get experience archiving micro and metadata, and to archive more than 10 surveys or studies. Unfortunately, most of the microdata are freely accessible yet. The Statistics Day organized in November 2018, allow the decision makers, the official authorities, researchers and the public to hear about the work being done by the NSS. The mission of the NSO Director General in Washington during Bank annual meeting allow him to discuss with Bank high management and to share what the NSO is doing to improve that production in Benin. Overall Outcome Rating 42. Overall out rating is ‘Moderately satisfactory (MS)’. Other Outcomes and Impacts 43. The project has shown several positive externalities. For instance, the training courses on poverty increased the use of the tools taught, even by people who didn’t attend. The production of the agricultural prices index is now funded by European union Commission. The training center is now equipped and can deliver better standard trainings while other partners are keen to contribute the training of students. 44. When the project started, the NSO procurement team was not well organized and they didn’t understand really the dynamic of Bank funded project. A high mobility of staff was noticed. When a new Director General was appointed, the implementation level and the disbursement rate were both very low, and this situation led to a project restructuring. Since the NSO didn’t appoint a public procurement specialist in charge to conduct and organize the procurement system, the new Director appointed the procurement specialist, reorganized the team, and the World Bank procurement and financial managements specialists provided timely technical support. A well trained and experienced FM specialist working on another Bank project was designated to provide support to his colleague at the NSO. As a result, at project closing, the disbursement rate was 98.3 percent. III. KEY FACTORS THAT AFFECTED IMPLEMENTATION AND OUTCOME 45. The project preparation experienced some delays. The project was initiated was approved only March 2017. After effectiveness, the project could not start as planned since the NSO staff were not familiar on the implementation of World Bank funded project. At restructuring, almost two years after approval, the overall project disbursement rate was only 26%. The following technical and logistical difficulties were noticed: (i) high mobility of the NSO staff in the departments in charge to carry out the project activities. (ii) high mobility of NSO staff involved in the training of the students in statistics, leading to an extension of training duration. Page 10 of 20 The World Bank Benin Statistical Capacity Building (P154314) (iii) overlap of project activities with that of other NSO activities resulting delay in the implementation of the project activities. (iv) overlapping of activities at the level of the NSO technical directorates leading to unavailability of managers. (v) non-availability of the NSO procurement plan for the year 2018. (vi) lack of knowledge of the World Bank procedures (mainly procurement using STEP and financial management) by the NSO project team. 46. It is worth to notice that Bank team (TTL, FM specialist and Procurement specialists) worked together to provide orientations, capacity building, coaching to the NSO colleagues to improve implementation as finally confirmed by the 98.3 percent disbursement rate, and completion of most activities planned at restructuring. IV. BANK PERFORMANCE, COMPLIANCE ISSUES, AND RISK TO DEVELOPMENT OUTCOME Quality at entry: 47. The project was designed in close collaboration with the NSO and the Poverty and Equity Global Practice team of the World Bank to support the implementation of the NSDS 2, and to pave the way to a bigger and structured statistics project. Project components and implementation strategies were identified and structured through comprehensive review of the strengths and weaknesses in the statistical system based on previous diagnostic of the NSS. Quality of supervision: 48. The supervisions were led by the Bank team, mainly the TTL, the FMS specialist and the procurement specialists. ISR were done regularly as well as GRMs. Follow-up meeting were initiated regularly or on demand with the PIU or with the Director General of the NSO. Overall rating of the World Bank performance: 49. Based on the justifications of both quality at entry and quality of supervision, the overall bank performance rate is Satisfactory. Risk to development outcome: 50. At the closure of the project, the project financing appeared to be insufficient to meet the project intended goals. For instance, to complete the Pseudo census survey that allow poverty mapping, the NSO needed 100,000 USD. That was a very big challenge. Overall, apart the above situation, there are a lot of interests among development partners to keep the outcome of the project sustainable. For instance, European Union, GIZ, UNICEF are funding Data Page 11 of 20 The World Bank Benin Statistical Capacity Building (P154314) V. LESSONS LEARNED AND RECOMMENDATIONS Lessons learned: 51. The low disbursement rate and project implementation difficulties noticed at the beginning of the project implementation were due to lack of commitment from the NSO management and project implementation unit team members, a non-clear definition of their roles and functions, the lack of preparation of the fiduciary staff dedicated to the project (procurement and financial management specialist), and the non-mastering of the procedures related to the management of project funded by partners and donors. 52. The high mobility of the NSO staff in the departments in charge to carry out the project activities and of those involved in the training of the students in statistics, led to overlap of project activities with that of other NSO activities resulting delay in the implementation of the project activities. 53. The non-availability of the NSO procurement plan for the year 2018, and the lack of knowledge of the World Bank procedures (mainly procurement using STEP and financial management) by the NSO project team and the non-availability of project management and accounting software also slowed down the project implementation. 54. There was also several good news regarding lessons learned. The commitment of the new head of the NSO was key to the project implementation success, particularly after project restructuring. In addition, the appointment of the person in charge of procurement, trainings provided to the fiduciary staff, and more intensive supervision facilitated the performance on disbursement rate at the end of the project. 55. The presence of the TTL in the country contributed a lot to identify project implementation barriers and to take appropriate actions and solutions on time. 56. On a more technical side, this project showed the important role the NSO has to play in coordinating the NSS activities. It showed the necessity to have leadership and commitment at the NSO side to federate other NSS entities to meet the PDO, mainly the NSDS implementation. Access to data is key to the NSO and the NSS successful implementation of the NSDS. 57. Permanent and adapted trainings to the NSO and NSS staff members is indispensable to maintain a high level of quality and timely statistical production and dissemination, as witnessed by the stakeholder during final evaluation of the project implementation. Recommendations: 58. Benin has adopted its third generation NSDS. The country is now ranked between the lower bound middle-income countries. That leverage the demand of quality and timely produced statistical data and studies. To comply with this requirement, the NSO need a more structured package of activities. In this line the NSO, on legal side introduced to the Parliament a new statistics law. This law states among others the establishment of a statistical development fund. It is thus primordial to adopt on time the above- mentioned law and to set up the National Statistics Development Fund. Page 12 of 20 The World Bank Benin Statistical Capacity Building (P154314) 59. The country is also engaged in the institutional reform of the NSO and the whole statistical system. In this context, it worth to notice that the TFSCB has paved the way to a bigger and more structured financing through a statistics project similar to what is being implemented through the “Harmonizing and Improving Statistics in West Africa� (HISWA). 60. On Financial management side, the external audit recommends to the NSO needs to sanction the meetings of the PIU with minutes; to comply with the provisions of article 29 of the revised SYSCOHADA when establishing project reports; to require in the contract specifications, the performance guarantee when the nature of the contract requires it in accordance with the law and to hold an attendance list for participants or catering beneficiaries during meetings, working sessions, etc. 61. In conclusion, the NSO should leverage on the performance and the realization of this small grant intervention to seek additional financing from the government and other partners in order to ensure sustainability of the project outcome. . Page 13 of 20 The World Bank Benin Statistical Capacity Building (P154314) ANNEX 1. RESULTS FRAMEWORK AND KEY OUTPUTS A. RESULTS INDICATORS A.1 PDO Indicators Objective/Outcome: Improve NSO and NSS capacity building Unit of Formally Revised Actual Achieved at Indicator Name Baseline Original Target Measure Target Completion Capacity Building of the NSS Number 0.00 50.00 50.00 60.00 and NSO 15-Mar-2017 15-Mar-2017 28-Feb-2019 24-Jan-2019 Comments (achievements against targets): Two sessions of training were organized for approximately 60 participants from the NSO and the NSS. The training sessions were delivered by the project TTL on poverty analysis and measurement using ADePT and on poverty mapping with PovMap. Unfortunately, the training sessions on statistics service management, survey data treatment and sampling were not realized due to issues on procurement. Two additional training sessions on CAPI and Stata planned after extension could not be organized due to time constraint of the TTL. Unit of Formally Revised Actual Achieved at Indicator Name Baseline Original Target Measure Target Completion Improved statistics Number 0.00 3.00 3.00 3.00 Page 14 of 20 The World Bank Benin Statistical Capacity Building (P154314) 15-Mar-2017 15-Mar-2017 28-Feb-2019 24-Jan-2019 Comments (achievements against targets): The TFSCB supported the production of the Agricultural products price index. This indicator was populated on the NSO website. Data were collected in February 2018 on 50 food livestock market. The Social Accounts Matrix (SAM) elaboration was canceled while the poverty mapping has been replaced by a special survey (pseudo-census) to produce poverty numbers at the commune (second administrative) level. Unit of Formally Revised Actual Achieved at Indicator Name Baseline Original Target Measure Target Completion Improved data dissemination Number 0.00 7.00 7.00 7.00 15-Mar-2017 15-Mar-2017 28-Feb-2020 24-Jan-2019 Comments (achievements against targets): Data and reports were disseminated at the workshop celebrating the 2019 Africa Statistics Day (ASD 2019) in November 2019. The workshop was launched by the Chief of Staff of the Ministry in charge of Statistics. Several studies and reports were presented on various thematic, including DHS, Agricultural census, Enterprise surveys, etc. In addition, following open data activities, the NSO disseminated several surveys metadata on its official website. A.2 Intermediate Results Indicators Component: Improve statistics production and capacity building Unit of Formally Revised Actual Achieved at Indicator Name Baseline Original Target Measure Target Completion Capacity building trainings for Number 0.00 50.00 25.00 24.00 Page 15 of 20 The World Bank Benin Statistical Capacity Building (P154314) two promotions of €œ Agents 15-Mar-2017 15-Mar-2017 28-Feb-2020 24-Jan-2019 Techniques de la Statistique Comments (achievements against targets): Finally, only one cohort of students were trained on two academic years. The training started with 26 students, and 24 could make effort to finish the scholarship. Among them few women were able to graduate. The training has been successful at the end of the day because, the level of education is highest than planned at the beginning of the project, and because the quality of the trainees is worth for institutional capacity improvement of the statistics system. Unit of Formally Revised Actual Achieved at Indicator Name Baseline Original Target Measure Target Completion Trainings for NSO and NSS staff Number 0.00 160.00 75.00 60.00 members on thematic related to relevant statistics and 15-Mar-2017 15-Mar-2017 28-Feb-2020 24-Jan-2019 poverty measurement/analysis tools Comments (achievements against targets): Two sessions of training were organized for approximately 60 participants from the NSO and the NSS. The training sessions were delivered by the project TTL on poverty analysis and measurement using ADePT and on poverty mapping with PovMap. The participants acknowledged the quality and importance of the capacity building as they mention during ICR mission, but they also urged the NSO to release on a regular basis household data to allow them to practice. Unit of Formally Revised Actual Achieved at Indicator Name Baseline Original Target Measure Target Completion The poverty maps will be Number 0.00 10.00 1.00 1.00 produced and released 15-Mar-2017 15-Mar-2017 28-Feb-2020 24-Jan-2019 Page 16 of 20 The World Bank Benin Statistical Capacity Building (P154314) Comments (achievements against targets): The NSO realized pseudo census survey on more than 35,000 households with usual household census questionnaire that is compatible with the most recent LSMS household surbey, the 2018-19 WAEMU living standards household survey. The pseudo-census survey is representative at least the second administrative geographic level of the country, the commune. Benin has 77 communes and the process of decentralization is well advanced in the country. Unfortunately, the NSO could not complete sucessfully the survey in the 77 communes, but only 45 while others are started (17) or yet to be start (15). Finally, 979 strata are completed out of 1336. The NSO estimated at 56 million CFAF the budget requested to complete the pseudo-census. The data from this pseudo-census are expected to be matched with the WAEMU households survey later to produce poverty map at the commune level. Unit of Formally Revised Actual Achieved at Indicator Name Baseline Original Target Measure Target Completion The Agriculture Price Index will Number 0.00 3.00 1.00 1.00 be constructed and released 15-Mar-2017 15-Mar-2017 28-Feb-2020 24-Jan-2019 Comments (achievements against targets): Only one activity was realized out of the three (03) previously planned. This concerns the development of the Agricultural Producer Price Indices (IPPAP) which was completed. This activity began with a first data collection which took place from February 21st to 28th, 2018 in collaboration with the Technical Monitoring and Support Unit for Food Security Management (ONSASA) in 50 food products markets and 15 markets of cattle. In addition, the data processing phase started with the data entry which covered the period from March 29 to May 29, 2018, i.e. two months and mobilized 04 data entry agents. The index calculation phase followed. These clues should be published on the INSAE website, but this was not the case. Unit of Formally Revised Actual Achieved at Indicator Name Baseline Original Target Measure Target Completion Datasets are archived and Number 0.00 12.00 12.00 10.00 released 15-Mar-2017 15-Mar-2017 28-Feb-2020 24-Jan-2019 Page 17 of 20 The World Bank Benin Statistical Capacity Building (P154314) Comments (achievements against targets): The NSO organized study tour for two staff members in Togo on NADA. Following this training, several workshops were organized including this time larger staff members of the NSO as well staff members from other NSS institutions or services. At the end of these training workshops, several studies and surveys were documented and metadata were released as well as microdata for some of them. This allow the NSO to meet the goal for this task. Unit of Formally Revised Actual Achieved at Indicator Name Baseline Original Target Measure Target Completion Workshops are organized Number 0.00 2.00 2.00 1.00 during Statistics Day events. 15-Mar-2017 15-Mar-2017 28-Feb-2020 24-Jan-2019 Comments (achievements against targets): Only one ASD event was organized in November 2018 as per the revised target stated. This workshop provided opportunity to present and disseminate several data archiving work as well as studies in the field of official statistics. ; Note to Task Teams: End of system generated content, document is editable from here. Please delete this note when finalizing the document. Page 18 of 20 The World Bank Benin Statistical Capacity Building (P154314) B. ORGANIZATION OF THE ASSESSMENT OF THE PDO Objective/Outcome 1: to strengthen the capacity of the National Statistical System (NSS) to implement the National Strategy for Development of Statistics (NSDS2) through the production of better, more accessible and relevant statistics 1. Capacity building of the NSS and NSO Outcome Indicators 2. Improved statistics 3. Improved dissemination. 1. Capacity building trainings for two promotions of “Agents Techniques de la Statistique 2. Trainings for NSO and NSS staff members Intermediate Results Indicators 3. Agriculture Price Index constructed and released 4. Pseudo census survey realized 5. Data sets archived and released 6. Workshops organized during ASD 1. 24 “Adjoints Techniques de la Statistique�(AD) trained 2. Training Center equipped 3. 60 NSO and NSS staff members received capacity building training on poverty measurement and analysis 4. All the NSO staff received training on ToC 5.The Director General of the NSO participated in a study tour during Key Outputs by Component 2019 Annual meetings (linked to the achievement of the Objective/Outcome 1) 6.Pseudo-census survey organized and carried at 72% of strata coverage 7.the agricultural products price index produced 8. Capacity building received by NSO and NSS staff on NADA and open data 9. Survey micro and metadata archived on NADA platform 10. ASD workshop organized Page 19 of 20 The World Bank Benin Statistical Capacity Building (P154314) . ANNEX 2. PROJECT COST BY COMPONENT Amount at Approval Actual at Project Percentage of Approval Components (US$M) Closing (US$M) (US$M) Capacity building of the National Statistical System and National Statistics Office 0 .10 .10 (Training of staff and students) Improved Statistical Production (Modeling 0 .09 .09 Structure setting up and Poverty Mapping) Improved Dissemination (Data archiving, outreach 0 .06 .06 activities, diffusion of yerabooks and dashboards). Project Management 0 .01 .01 (coordination and audit) Total 0.00 0.26 0.26 Page 20 of 20 The World Bank Benin Statistical Capacity Building (P154314) ANNEX 3. RECIPIENT, CO-FINANCIER AND OTHER PARTNER/STAKEHOLDER COMMENTS The recipient received the ICR report and acknowledged the conclusions and ratings as stated in the email from the Director General of the NSO. In this email, and also from discussions, the NSO completely aree with the ratins of the ICR and is determined to show a better commitment in a future statistical project such the one under impplementtaion at the regional level. This email is attached to the ICR submission package. Page 21 of 20