Helping Turkey to Collect and Assess Data for Development

What is UNFPA doing to help ?

UNFPA has been active across Turkey since 1971. Since then it has supported a wide range of activities and programmes including a number of key initiatives to improve the gathering, analysis and use of data for population and development.

For details of UNFPA's individual projects currently underway in Turkey, click here.

Achievements so far:

Working together with UNFPA and guided by the Programme of Action which resulted from the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) , the Government of Turkey has already made considerable progress in improving its ability to collect and use data for development:

A web-based databank

Together with other UN agencies in Turkey, UNFPA Turkey continued to assist the Turkish Statistical Institute (TURKSTAT) by providing technical and financial support for maintaining and updating a web-based data bank. This data bank monitors population and development strategies in Turkey as well as progress on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)

Although it is still being developed, the data bank is already an important resource, providing comparable and accurate data for the Common Country Assessment (CCA) for Turkey and the United Nations Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF) for Turkey .

The data bank currently contains 49 indicators related to population and development , of which 22 are MDG indicators.

Priority research and studies:

In 2004, with technical and financial assistance from UNFPA The Turkish Academy of Sciences started to develop a `policy kit` which would include suggestions from focus groups about governance, social structure, economics, education, urbanization, demography, health and environment. The reports from these discussions will be brought together, with crosscutting issues like gender, regional disparities and sustainability all taken into consideration. A number of studies have been published.

A National Committee to look at the issue of ageing

In 2004, UNFPA took part in the preparations of a national action plan for population ageing and became an active member of the National Ageing Committee.

The National Ageing Committee was established by the State Planning Organization (SPO) and Social Services and Child Protection Agency and aims to revise and adapt a National Plan of Action for population ageing. As the sole UN agency represented at committee meetings, UNFPA took part in the technical working group which revised this Plan of Action and will continue its cooperation with the SPO in the reporting and dissemination phase of the Plan of Action.

Ongoing initiatives:

In its current programme for Turkey, UNFPA aims to provide further support to the Turkish government in making available disaggregated demographic data and information and to promote the consideration of such data in the formulation and implementation of social and economic policies.

UNFPA plans to do this in a number of ways:

• By strengthening national and local capacity for collection, analysis, dissemination and application of disaggregated data.
• By providing support to strengthening vital statistics system.
• By continuing support for maintaining the Population and Development and Millennium Development Goals Databank
• By supporting further research and studies in priority areas

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