THE HAGUE - Having the Dutch Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) draw up a Broad Welfare Monitor for the Caribbean parts of the Kingdom every year requires a lot of work and is also a costly affair. Undersecretary of Kingdom Relations Raymond Knops writes this in response to a request from the Standing Committee for Kingdom Relations in the Dutch Parliament.
The undersecretary has asked CBS to make an inventory of how much work is involved and what the costs are.
In his letter, Knops says that he has received a request from the standing committee in parliament to have a baseline Monitor Broad Welfare Caribbean Netherlands / Caribbean Countries updated annually by Statistics Netherlands at the expense of the cabinet. Knops says that he is also responding on behalf of the Minister of Economic Affairs and Climate and the Minister of Foreign Trade and Development.
The indicators that are already available have been explored with CBS. Availability can be divided into three categories. As the CBS indicated in its report of 29 January, a limited number (12.7%) of the indicators for a Broad Welfare Monitor and Sustainable Development Goals are currently already available for the CBS. In addition, a number of indicators (18%) could possibly be filled in with data from CBS or another institution. However, the majority of the indicators (69.3%) are not available (or not applicable for the Caribbean Netherlands). This means that the data from these indicators could not be realized without great efforts, costs and administrative burdens.
In the light of the above, the government has asked CBS to provide an indication of the costs and efforts that would be required to collect the various categories of indicators. Once the inventory has been completed by CBS, the cabinet will assess the options available for monitoring indicators. The cabinet and Statistics Netherlands aim to achieve this before the autumn recess. You will be further informed about this.