The ESCAP Statistical Database provides a regional perspective on development issues in Asia and the Pacific. The database, covering the 58 regional ESCAP Member States and Associate Members, contains over 370 statistical indicators disaggregated into 1500 data series on a wide range of topics organized into 16 domains: demographic trends, health, education, poverty, gender, energy and natural resources, disasters, environment, GDP, labour, trade, financing, science, technology and innovation, connectivity, governance and insecurity.

The ESCAP Statistical Database is being compiled and maintained by the ESCAP Statistics Division.

Sources of Data

Data is compiled from United Nations agencies and programmes and other international sources of official statistics. In selecting data sources, priority is given to primary sources of data in order to preserve timeliness and minimize the loss of metadata which might occur when using secondary (re-disseminated) statistical information.

ESCAP calculates regional aggregates presented in the database. For that purpose, data from all countries are downloaded and processed through ESCAP statistical information system in order to calculate regional aggregates, including aggregates for major parts of the world outside of the Asia-Pacific region.

Information on specific data source for each indicator is provided in the metadata information sheet accessible through the “metadata” button in the indicator selection menus.

Aggregation Methods

For some indicators, some values are missing from country time series. Aggregates should therefore be treated as approximations of actual, unknown totals or averages.

Aggregates are calculated for pre-defined country groupings, typically as sum or as weighted average provided that enough observed data are available at the country level. The mechanism to test the availability of data is set as follows:

• Social and environmental indicators: for any given year for which an aggregate is calculated, countries with observed values need to represent 2/3 of the population of the group.
• Economic indicators: countries with observed values need to represent 2/3 of the total GDP of the group.

However, applying the above method might still result in irregular aggregate values over time as some country data could be missing for some years – although the “2/3” rule will still be observed. In those cases, some imputation methods are applied to fill in missing data points, according to the following imputation methodology:

• If values are available for both an earlier and a later year than the year for which the aggregate is calculated, the missing value is imputed using linear interpolation.
• A missing country value for a year preceding the earliest year for which a value is available is imputed using the value from the earliest year.
• Similarly, a missing country value for a year following the latest year for which a value is available is imputed by using the value of the latest year.
• For countries with only one data point for the whole period, this value is used for all missing years.

No information is used from other countries for imputing the missing values.

Imputed values are used only in calculating aggregates and in calculating derived indicators when data are missing for some years for some countries for the underlying series used in the calculation. Imputed values are not available in the database.

If imputation is used to derive aggregates, it is provided in the metadata information sheet accessible through the “metadata” button in the indicator selection menus.