Human Development Report

[Facilitator's note: Please see attached document on "Calculating GDP"]

Dear Collegues,

UNDP Kosovo is planning to publish the next NHDR in January 2004, its theme will be Participation and Representation. The concept paper for the KHDR 2004 is available at UNDP Kosovo web site: www.ks.undp.org

The primary aim of the Report will be updating Kosovo's HDI, GDI, and HPI. The other important objective is to calculate HDI for all the municipalities (30) in Kosovo.

However as a post conflict society Kosovo has scarce statistical data. Just for illustration there was no census since 1981 and even for population statistics there are estimates that vary from 1.8 million to 2.2 million. In this regard the only method that we can calculate HDI, GDI, and HPI is through a Household Survey.

In the attempt to calculate HDI for municipalities the household survey will provide the data for:
1. Life expectancy index
2. Adult literary index
3. Gross enrollment index
4. Educational attainment index
5. Calculate the percentage of people without access to safe water
6. Percentage of people without access to health services

However the most problematic area is calculating per capita GDP for each municipality.  The Ministry of Finance and Economy (MEF) is working with the IMF to estimate the Kosovo GDP, which will be published in May 2003. However data at municipal level is very scarce, there are no reliable population estimates for municipalities and although there are municipal budgets there are no tracks of investments. In this direction calculating investments by municipality would be very problematic.

Bearing in mind limitations with available data we have decided to calculate municipal GDP with the help of a household survey. This method will allow us to overcome the problem of estimation of population and it will provide us with basic statistics per capita. We will try to calculate Municipal GDP by the "Expenditure Approach” since this approach is used by the MEF to calculate Kosovo GDP.

Basically with the help of the household survey we will try to get data about the household Consumption and Investment and divide this by household size while other components of
the GDP (Government Spending and Net Exports) will be held as constants throughout Kosovo. For more detailed information about this calculation method please find attached document for calculating GDP.

We think that this method will allow us to get the figures, which will help us compare municipalities in regard to GDP, and it will give insight into the expenditures and production of households in Kosovo.

With this regard we would like draw on the experience of colleagues throughout the world who had similar problems with data to advise us are we on the right track? What could be other possible solutions to the problems discussed? And most important, comments and suggestions about the method for calculating the GDP would be welcomed.

Thanks in advance and best regards,

Myather Haskuka
UNDP Kosovo

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Mytaher Haskuka
Programme Analyst
UNDP Kosovo
+38138249066
www.ks.undp.org

Dear Myather Haskuka,

Yes, the Municipal GDP is a problem and we faced its seriousness in
Bulgaria as well. Our experience shows that desegregation at very low level
brings considerable deviations which sometimes need many explanations
while bringing small messages (www.undp.bg).

The risk of low statistical reliability could be particularly high if you go at
lower municipal level through a survey: In order to obtain reliable data for 30
separate sub samples you will need a very large national sample. Can you
afford it? A good way-out could be to desegregate at some higher regional
level (probably 5 - 6 bigger regions), but I do not know if this could be
meaningful  in Kosovo.

Good luck: Dotcho Mihailov (NHDR National Coordinator, Bulgaria)
 

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NHDR 2003 National Coordinator, Bulgaria

Dear Mr. Haskuka,

In reply to your query for calculating GDP for municipalities, I have the pleasure to inform you that Egypt Human Development Report 2003 which was launched few days ago, its focal theme was "Local Participatory
Development" and it has covered for the first time - as an innovation- a further disaggregation of the HDI which went down to the level of Markaz, Hai and City- or what might perhaps be familiar to you as municipality. The Report includes technical notes detailing the methodology applied for calculating the HDI, including the GDP, which your query is about.

In the near future, the Report will be on the web, but in the meantime, perhaps I can send you a copy (we have it in both English and Arabic) through the UNDP Cairo Office pouch, if you write me your full mailing address.

I hope the data included therein will be useful.

Kind regards

-------------------------
Nazli El Sirgani
Project Officer
Egypt Human Development Report
UNDP/INP

Dear Mr. Dotcho Mihailov,

Thank you for your comments. The question about the reliability was one of the issues discussed the most. We needed a large national sample size in order to overcome the problem of reliability, which as you might guess is very expensive. However we were fortunate because at the same time UNFPA, UNICEF and SIDA were interested to conduct a demographic household survey. So we coordinated our efforts and funds to increase the sample size. At the moment the planned sample size is 7000 households, which represents approximately 2 % of the households in Kosovo (estimated number is 350,000) and we hope that this will increase the reliability of the results.
 
The problem with the regional approach that you suggested is that we are interested to compare regions that are defined by governing (political) structures. At the regional level there are KFOR regions and UNMIK regions that do not correspond geographically and there are no political governing structures at that level. Thus the only meaningful comparisons of HDI of different regions is at municipal level where there are municipal structures.
 
Thanks again and best regards,
Mytaher Haskuka

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Mytaher Haskuka
Programme Analyst
UNDP Kosovo
+38138249066
www.ks.undp.org

Edited: 04/17/2003 at 03:07 PM by HDR - Measurement Sub-Network Moderator