Central Statistics Offices
In all three countries, the Central Statistics Offices are in charge of national official statistics system. However, in Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, the collection of some statistical information is delegated to other national institutions as it says in the Law on Statistics of Republic of Serbia, in Article 3: “Statistical surveys within the scope of their charge are organized and executed by other government authorities” and the Republic Fund for Pension and Disablement Insurance is one of the organizations expressly mentioned.
In all of the countries, CSOs are open and willing to work on disability statistics and have strong interests in this area. Nevertheless, for the moment they have very limited experience in this area. They have never conducted any census including questions on disability and never conducted surveys with a disability module or disability question with the exception of the Living Standards Measurement Survey (LSMS) in BiH.
Each CSO has a department or sector dedicated to demographic and social indicators with focuses on vulnerable populations but at this point they do not include disability. Nevertheless, these departments all have sufficient capacities to develop indicators on disability and to run in-depth surveys on this population.
In the three countries the potential of the national statistical offices are largely underestimated or even ignored by the stakeholders of the disability sector. Central Statistical Offices (CSOs) are perceived as the place where technicians from the various ministries have to send their data from their registries. The CSOs are not generally seen as a source of new statistical information outside of the administrative registries.

Disabled People’s Organisations (DPOs)
The DPOs in the three countries have contrasted awareness on the importance of disability statistics. The largest membership-based DPOs usually have registries of their members. They can find in their registers the basic information they need for lobbying (education level, employment background, type of disability, age and gender) and in general, they do not pay major attention to other groups.
Smaller DPOs generally representing less protected groups or cross-disability organisations have shown more interest in these debates either because they are fighting for more visibility and recognition by authorities or because they are more familiar with making comparisons not only between the different groups of persons with disabilities but also between people with disabilities and the rest of the population.
In terms of statistics, DPOs are usually looking for basic statistics such as the prevalence of disability (i.e. the percentage of the population with disabilities) or data on the number of people with a specific impairment. They are interested in information giving a description of the population with disabilities but data on access to services, education, employment and healthcare was mentioned less frequently by DPOs.
For DPOs in the region the definition of disability is a sensitive issue. It is seen as a key issue as it underlies the population benefiting from social protection. Cross-disability organizations appear generally more open than others to the use of broad definitions of disability. Clearly there is a lack of consensus in the three countries between the DPOs, on the definition of disability.
There are several good examples in the region of DPOs who are beginning to conduct surveys and widen the perspective on disability data collection. One of the strongest examples is the Association of Students with Disabilities of Serbia.
This interview points to the need for experts in research to be involved in the data collection processes, particularly when developing survey questionnaires and analyzing the results. DPOs should look to universities and research institutes for expertise on these surveys to leverage their capacities in conducting quantitative research.

National authorities
In all three countries, ministries of social affairs are in charge of disability while ministries of education are responsible for disability and education issues. In all countries, it should be noted that disability is not a part of ministries of health even in terms of prevention or early detection strategies.
Disability policies that are developed based on statistical evidence as promoted by the OSCE is not widespread throughout the world and these three countries are not an exception. Most of actors interviewed from various line ministries presented the fragmentary information they had related to disability but did not express a need to develop further indicators. For instance, in terms of education of children with disabilities, in all three countries, the only indicator available is the number of children in special schools (a registry approach). This indicator is not very relevant for monitoring the promotion of inclusive education.
Similar observations can be made in terms of employment where the predominant indicator is a registry of the number of people working in sheltered employment or list of people registered with the national employment services. However, these indicators do not allow for the calculation of other indicators such as participation rates of people with disabilities in the mainstream labour force or the unemployment rate.
In terms indicators for social services, the situation is similar. The primary sources of information are registries of those who have access to social services or who are registered with centers for social work. Yet, no data on the most vulnerable part of the population with disabilities, those who are not registered or do not have access to services can be calculated. Classical indicators such as the coverage of social services cannot currently be calculated.
Policies oriented towards equalisation of opportunities and full participation of people with disabilities in cannot be monitored or evaluated with the existing tools. In all three countries these instruments for monitoring and evaluating policy implementation need to be developed and a strong investment in the development of indicators needs to become a priority for national and local authorities.

National Institutions
In Albania, BiH and Serbia, there are various national institutions that collect information on disability. They include the national disability pension fund, the national employment service and, in Albania, the National Health Institute. In all three countries, the national employment service incorporates a disability dimension in their database which means that information on disability can be disaggregated from their registries. Still this information is limited to only those who are registered within the national employment bureau.
The disability pension fund in Serbia is responsible for collecting statistical information on pension recipients. However, this data only delivers information on a sub-population of those who are receiving a disability allowance.
Centers for social work also have information on people with disabilities who have access to specialized services but they do not have information on those people with disabilities who do not have access to services.
It is clear that in the three countries, the information system on disability is based solely on administrative registries, a legacy of the former Socialist regimes. It was conceived for control purposes of financial flows such as disability pensions or allowance systems. It is also a by-product of the management of specialized institutions for people with disabilities including residential institutions, special schools and sheltered workshops.

International actors
There are several international agencies active in the region with a focus on developing statistical capacities. DFID and the World Bank are currently funding various surveys such as living standards measurement surveys (in Serbia), household budget surveys and labour force surveys (in BiH and Albania). These surveys present an excellent opportunity for gathering data on disability. With the inclusion of several questions on disability in each survey, significant information on the living conditions of people with disabilities can begin to be collected.