The third session of the Committee on Statistics of ESCAP took place in Bangkok from 12 to 14 December 2012. Building on the outcomes of the two previous sessions, the Committee at its third session reviewed its strategic direction and functioning, discussed and decided on a number of regional initiatives and on plans for the regional implementation of global strategies, and reviewed issues related to the coordination of statistical activities, including training, among development partners (see more detail below).

The Committee session was inaugurated by Mr Anudith Nakornthap, Minister of Information and Communications Technology, Royal Thai Government, who shared the achievements of the Thai national statistical systems in improving coordination of statistical work across various government ministries and in harnessing the power of information and information technology tools to increase the efficiency of the collection, processing and dissemination of statistics. In welcoming the delegations, the United Nations Under-Secretary-General and Executive Secretary of Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, Dr Noeleen Heyzer, highlighted the significance of the range of issues to be deliberated for reviewing new options and better targeting actions to build a more inclusive and sustainable Asia-Pacific region. At the opening session, Mr Paul Cheung, Director of the United Nations Statistics Division, outlined major global trends in statistics developments, including the development integrated systems of statistics and geospatial information.

The Committee supported a proposed approach to monitoring its work and entrusts its Bureau with the task of ensuring full implementation, stressing that the monitoring approach should be applied consistently across the statistics development programmes of the Committee.

The Committee also elected its Bureau, consisting of Ms Carmelita Ericta (Philippines) as the Chair; Mr Gerelt-Od Ganbaatar (Mongolia), Mr Ki-Jong Woo (Republic of Korea) and Mr Sefuiva Reupena Muagututi’a (Samoa) as Vice Chairs; and Ms Aishath Shahuda (Maldives) and Mr Geoff Bascand (New Zealand) who acted as the Rapporteaur.

The Committee reviewed the implementation plan for the Regional Programme for the Improvement of Economic Statistics in Asia and the Pacific. This Regional Programme was initiated by the Committee at its second session in 2010. The Committee had also previously endorsed a Core Set of Economic Statistics to help set the scope for regional capacity development efforts. During the third session, the Committee reaffirmed its previous decisions on the Regional Programme and strongly endorsed the implementation plan and its recommended actions.  The Committee also decided to invite representatives of other national producers of economic statistics, such as central banks and ministries of finance, to become members of the Steering Group for the Regional Programme on Economic Statistics.

The Committee reviewed the strategic approach and the work plan of the Technical Advisory Group (TAG) on Social Statistics as well as its proposal for a core set of population and social statistics. The Committee congratulated the TAG for its progress since its establishment and an important global milestone in the area of social statistics development was achieved: the endorsement of the core set as a regional guideline for national capacity development. At the next session of the ESCAP Commission, the Committee will present the recommendation of using this core set as a regional framework for focusing efforts, coordinating training and mobilizing donor support for capacity development in the areas of population and social statistics.

While endorsing the continuation of the TAG on Social Statistics during 2013/14 and approving the strategic approach for its work, the Committee also asked the TAG to further develop a more detailed work plan regarding the review of current national statistical practices and capacities and the development of a regional programme to address identified gaps. Finally, the Committee recognized the ongoing work by Pacific island developing States, and recommended that the TAG to take it into account in its work.

The Committee endorsed the Regional Strategic Plan for the Improvement of Civil Registration and Vital Statistics (CRVS) in Asia and the Pacific and strongly recommended a meeting of relevant ministers and development partners be held in order to attain the high-level political commitment required to support the successful implementation of the Plan. Furthermore, the Committee decided to establish a steering group to guide the implementation of the Plan, and requested the Bureau, in consultation with Committee members to develop the terms of reference for the steering group, and supported the establishment of a regional support office for coordinating regional support activities and facilitating the implementation of the Plan.

The Committee recognized that the identification of a core set of vital statistics to be produced by a functional CRVS system could encourage improvement and could be used to monitor progress in the implementation of the Regional Strategic Plan for the Improvement of CRVS in Asia and the Pacific. The Committee stressed the importance of a regional knowledge platform for sharing lessons learned and experiences to support national efforts to improve CRVS. Noting the importance of the collective efforts required for improving CRVS systems, the Committee encouraged effective coordination and cooperation among relevant government entities. It urged development partners to effectively coordinate support at the global, regional and national levels. The Committee emphasized the potential of information and communications technology for improving the functioning of CRVS systems and for accelerating progress in improving CRVS systems in the region.

This was the first time that the Committee discussed the topic of modernization of statistical information systems as part of its regular session. The discussion during this 3rd session of the Committee was based on a paper prepared jointly by the Australian Bureau of Statistics as member of the Bureau, and the secretariat. The Committee recognized the importance and urgency of modernizing national statistical information systems for addressing the evolving field of statistics, and maintain the relevance of statistics across developed and developing countries. It noted that modernization entailed organizational transformation, which could be supported by, but not driven by, improvement in information technology.

Concluding its discussions, the Committee decided to establish a high-level strategic body on modernization of statistical information systems, stressing that both developing and developed statistical systems should be represented on the high-level body. It also decided to establish an expert community to raise awareness and build capacity, particularly related to concepts, methods and standards, to support national modernization efforts.

The Bureau is to develop the terms of reference for the high-level strategic body and to identify related resource requirements prior to the establishment of the strategic body.

The Committee discussed activities of the Steering Group for Agricultural Statistics in 2010-2012, and considered the Asia-Pacific Regional Action Plan to Improve Agricultural and Rural Statistics which was developed under the guidance of the Steering Group.

The Committee fully endorsed the Regional Action Plan. The Committee also approved the establishment and the composition of a Regional Steering Committee to guide the implementation of the Regional Action Plan.

For the first time since its reestablishment in 2009, the Committee on Statistics discussed detailed regional activities for the improvement of environment statistics. The Committee agreed to establish an informal network of experts and an online knowledge centre to foster regional collaboration in this area. The scope for this work will be determined using the frameworks and standards endorsed by the United Nations, and particularly the United Nations Statistical Commission. In this regard,  the Committee took note, in particular, of the importance of the outcome of the most recent United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development  (Rio+20),  the recent decision of the United Nations Statistical Commission to adopt the System of Environmental-Economic Accounting (SEEA), and the forthcoming Framework for Development of Environment Statistics (FDES).

The Committee took note of the multiple ongoing processes to consult on the global development agenda beyond 2015, including the development of global sustainable development goals. It recognized the role of the United Nations regional commissions in that process, as outlined in the outcome document of Rio+20. The Committee emphasized the need for the statistical community to be actively engaged at an early stage of the relevant processes so as to play a role in defining the monitoring framework for the development agenda. The Committee also welcomed the report by OECD on measuring wellbeing and fostering the progress of societies and recognized the many important initiatives currently under development in member States to develop new measures of progress that complement the gross domestic product.

The Committee recognized the importance of coordination of statistical training for the effective implementation of its regional statistics development programmes. It expressed appreciation for the effective work of the Working Group on the Regional Coordination of Statistical Training.

Given the specific mandate of the Governing Council of the Statistical Institute for Asia and the Pacific, the Committee agreed that the advisory body should be independent of the Governing Council, but that the Governing Council should be represented on the advisory body.

The Committee welcomed the offers of China and the Russian Federation to provide financial and technical support for statistical training in the region.

The Committee discussed activities of the Partners for Statistics Development in Asia and the Pacific in 2010-2012, and expressed appreciation. It noted with gratitude the active participation of partners in various regional initiatives of the Committee. In particular, the Committee recognized the contributions of the partners to the efforts of the Working Group on the Regional Coordination of Statistical Training.

The Committee encouraged partners to continue to collaborate and to further align their work and available resources with the Committee’s regional statistics development programmes, in particular their training components

A session on ICT statistics was organized as a side event to the third session of the Committee on Statistics. The topic of the event was proposed by the Partnership on Measuring ICT for Development, which includes ESCAP, and organized by the Information and Communications Technology and Disaster Risk Reduction Division (IDD) of ESCAP in collaboration with Statistics Division. This event provided a forum to exchange experiences and challenges in the production of ICT statistics.

Presentations from ESCAP, UIS-UNESCO and a video from ITU provided an overview of the situation of ICT indicators in the Asia-Pacific region and some of the efforts to improve their availability. Presentations from the Philippines, New Zealand and Thailand provided overviews of the challenges faced by National Statistical Offices (NSOs) in this area of work especially in terms of developing definitions in this dynamic area, coordination among national agencies and liaising with private sector, among others. The presentations were followed by a discussion on the importance of improving the availability of ICT indicators and the potential role of NSOs.

Participants at the side event welcomed the opportunity to discuss this topic and highlighted the increasing need for improved statistical coordination, capacity building and support from different international agencies in developing standards.

On 10-11 December, 232 senior participants representing 46 countries and 22 development organizations attended the ‘Make Every Life Count’ High-level Meeting on the Improvement of Civil Registration and Vital Statistics (CRVS) in Asia and the Pacific at the UN Convention Centre in Bangkok. The event was co-hosted by ESCAP and WHO, with the event’s Organizing Committee being made up of an additional 18 partners.

CRVS systems are an essential national resource for recording vital events in people’s lives: birth, adoption, marriage, divorce and death. This information, such as statistics on demographics and causes of death, are fundamental for designing public policy that matches peoples’ needs. By very definition, dysfunctional CRVS systems hamper inclusive growth and sustainable development. The millions of people who are not registered in Asia and the Pacific are legally invisible and exposed to exploitation, including human trafficking.

The High-level Meeting was a response to a call by ESCAP members and associate members, through ESCAP resolution 67/12, for the Executive Secretary to convene, ‘a high-level regional meeting of decision makers from national statistical offices, civil registration offices, ministries of health and other relevant stakeholders to raise awareness and foster increased commitment to improving CRVS.’

The High-level Meeting introduced the ‘Make Every Life Count’ initiative and in a successful outcome, participants agreed on two key actions to take the initiative forward.

Firstly, participants reached consensus on a ‘Make Every Life Count’ Regional Strategic Plan for the Improvement of CRVS in Asia and the Pacific (2012-2020) that contains country actions and regional support activities to allow governments to take the necessary steps to strengthen their CRVS systems. The Regional Strategic Plan was developed by ESCAP and a Drafting Group of partner organizations and CRVS experts.

In recognizing the requirement for commitment at the highest levels of government in order to enable the improvement of CRVS systems, the second key action that participants agreed on was recommending a meeting of relevant ministers in 2013 to commit to actions that will realize a goal of well-functioning CRVS systems in all Asia-Pacific countries by 2020.

Immediately after the High-level Meeting, the third session of the ESCAP Committee on Statistics endorsed the same Regional Strategic Plan and reaffirmed the recommendation of a meeting of relevant ministers. In addition, the Committee recommended the establishment of a regional steering committee to oversee the further development of the Regional Strategic Plan and its implementation in the future.

The success of the High-level Meeting can be attributed to the strong interest and commitment of countries and development partners in the region, as evidenced by the fantastic turnout. Participants representing the statistics, civil registration and health sectors in national governments included many Deputy Ministers, Permanent Secretaries and Directors-General. Senior officials from six partner organizations, including regional directors (or equivalent) of UNICEF, IOM, UN Women and ADB, took part in a panel discussion about how CRVS improvement is ‘everybody’s business’.

As an excellent example of inter-regional dialogue and South-South cooperation, of the 46 countries represented at the High-level Meeting, 3 were from outside of ESCAP (South Africa, Uruguay and Egypt). At a special dinner reception, Mr Pali Lehola, Statistician-General of South Africa, and Ms Cristina Tello, from the Office of Planning and Budget under the Presidency of Uruguay, shared the respective regional experiences of Africa and Latin America to improve CRVS.

In addition to the main conference room deliberations, a side-event on innovative approaches to civil registration was organized by UNICEF and Plan International. The side-event introduced ideas on how mobile and other technology can contribute to overcoming geographic and infrastructure challenges to improving CRVS systems.

The High-level Meeting and the introduction of the ‘Make Every Life Count’ initiative have been the culmination of three years of robust efforts by numerous development partners to make CRVS improvement a national and regional priority in Asia and the Pacific. These efforts began in 2009 when the ESCAP Committee on Statistics, at its first session, noted the importance of improving CRVS in the region. Subsequent meetings, including a regional forum on CRVS in June 2010 and the second session of the ESCAP Committee on Statistics in December 2010, paved the way for ESCAP to adopt resolution 67/12.

The eighth session of the Governing Council of the Statistical Institute for Asia and the Pacific (SIAP) was held at United Nations Conference Center in Bangkok, Thailand, on 6-7 December 2012. Seven of the members of the Governing Council, including SIAP’s host government, Japan, Australia, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Republic of Korea and Thailand attended the session. Representatives from 10 member and associate member States and 5 international organizations also attended the session as observers.  Members unanimously elected Mr Trevor Sutton, Deputy Government Statistician of Australia as chair.

The Council recommended that SIAP continue to expand its work in delivery of internet-based e-learning and develop a long term strategy on the effective use of internet-based e-learning in its programme of training courses.

For expanding the resource base for providing quality statistical training in the region, the Council recommended that SIAP study to establish a system for certifying trainers and institutions providing training as well as standardized training materials. It also decided that SIAP should carry out a study to improve measurement of the impact of SIAP training.

Considering the continued financial challenges faced by SIAP, the Council decided to reiterate its recommendations and to issue another letter to member States to increase contributions to SIAP.

The council endorsed the financial plan and programme of work of SIAP for academic year 2013 and decided to create a Friend of the Chair to assist SIAP in developing its next strategic plan to be reviewed by the Council at its tenth session.

Twenty-five junior/middle level statisticians from 15 countries (Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Ethiopia, India, Iraq, Lao PDR, Lesotho, Micronesia (Federated States of), Mongolia, Pakistan, Philippines, Samoa, Syria and Tanzania) participated in the Third Group Training Course in Production and Development of Official Statistics in Support for National Development including the Achievement of MDGs, from 20 August 2012 to 21 December 2012.  The course was conducted by SIAP, in cooperation with the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communication (MIC) of the government of Japan.

This four-month residential course enhanced the knowledge and skills of participants in collection and processing of data and production and use of basic official statistics and indicators.  The course content was organised into 3 modules:  statistical and survey methodology; national accounts and economic statistics; and MDGs and related demographic and social statistics.  Participants undertook a group project work on planning and implementing a demonstration sample survey　(“Survey on Personal and Professional Development of Ex-SIAP Participants”, which covered 271 ex-SIAP participants with valid e-mail address and aimed to provide information on career and professional advancement after completing SIAP training courses and on the perception and views on MDGs-related matters). The project work gave the participants an opportunity to apply newly acquired knowledge and skills on concepts and standards, statistical and survey methods and use of statistical software for processing, summarizing and analysing survey data.

With the objective of extending the benefits of individual training to their respective institutions, each participant committed to an action plan for sharing knowledge and experience gained from the course, such as through training, to be implemented upon return to their home offices. Heads of their institutions also committed to provide the needed support to their trainees in the implementation of the action plans.

Twenty-three resource persons mainly from the government of Japan, FAO, ILO, ESCAP-SD and World Bank were involved in the delivery of the course.

The fifth Regional Course on “Statistical Quality Management and Fundamental Principles” was conducted by Statistical Institute for Asia and the Pacific (SIAP) in collaboration with Statistical Centre of Iran (SCI) during 30 September to 3 October 2012 in Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran. The course focused on the topic of “national quality assurance frameworks” in support of the plan to pilot the generic national quality assurance framework template (g-NQAF) that was endorsed by the United Nations Statistical Commission at its 43rd session in 2012. The workshop provided a platform for senior- or middle-level statisticians from 11 countries in the region to: (i) discuss the rationale, contents and uses of the g-NQAF; (ii) map the g-NQAF to their existing quality frameworks or their quality concerns; (iii) identify gaps and opportunities for improving current procedures and adopting and implementing the g-NQAF in their organizations; and (iv) develop a plan of action for implementing an NQAF in their organizations as well as the larger national statistical system.

During the course, the 17 participants mapped the g-NQAF to their current quality framework, provided concrete recommendations for the revision of guidelines and mechanisms prepared by the expert group on NQAF and identified gaps and priorities and proposed required steps in order to implement the g-NQAF in their respective countries.

Majority of the participants found the training very relevant and useful to their organization and suggested that more hands-on training combined with learning more about good practices would be useful for piloting the g-NQAF in this region.

For six officials of the General Statistics Office of Viet Nam, The Statistical Institute for Asia and the Pacific (SIAP) enhanced their skills in developing training plans, programmes and curricula on official statistics through the Training Course on Activities to Develop the Statistical Human Resources for Vietnam Statistics in Chiba, Japan from 1 – 5 October 2012.

The officials from Statistical College, Institute of Statistical Science, Department of Human Resources, Department of Foreign Statistics and International Cooperation and Binh Dinh Statistics office listened to presentations, engaged in discussion sessions on strategic planning and curriculum development as practiced by SIAP, and observed the training techniques and action plan sessions of the ongoing SIAP 4-month residential SIAP/JICA training course.  They also exchanged views and ideas with experts of two Japanese statistical system organizations engaged in statistical training: Statistical Research and Training Institute, Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC) and the National Statistics Center.

Thirteen participants – 7 from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) BS, 4 from local statistical offices, 1 from Women’s Study Institute of China and 1 from UNICEF China, attended the Training Course on Gender Statistics for Officials of the National Bureau of Statistics of China (NBS) in Chiba, Japan from 15 -19 October 2012.  The Statistical Institute for Asia and the Pacific (SIAP) organized the course in collaboration with UNFPA China and UNICEF China.  
The main objective of the course was to strengthen capacity in gender statistics through achieving better understanding of and learning from the Japanese system related to the production, dissemination, analysis and utilization of sex-disaggregated data. SIAP Director Margarita Guerrero facilitated discussions on international frameworks for gender statistics, core gender statistics and indicators and methodologies for collecting and compiling time-use statistics and statistics on VAW.  Briefing sessions by officials of the Statistics Bureau of Japan and Cabinet Office and observation of activities of the National Women’s Education Center of Japan and Yokohama Women’s Association for Communication and Networking (YMACN) provided highlights of the Japanese system.

Participants found the course fruitful and field visits were highly evaluated for their usefulness to observe/learn facilities and activities of agencies on the spot and direct interaction with agency staff.

As part of the multi-year collaboration between UNFPA and SIAP on a series of regional and sub-regional workshops on utilising census data as well as related data sources in the planning cycle, a regional training workshop was conducted during 15-19 October in Chiba, Japan. The workshop brought together 24 participants (20 government officials and four from UNFPA country offices) from seven countries in Asia.  Each country had participants from the statistical office, national planning and local planning units, and country UNFPA offices.

The main objectives of the workshop were to (i) increase understanding of the use of census data in local development planning and decision-making; (ii) improve skills in applying tools for extracting needed information from census data relevant to planning and; (iii) identify issues and problems in use and analysis of census data relevant for planning and policy-making purposes and propose actionable solutions.

The training sessions engaged participants in lectures and group discussions on: use of statistical data for local planning; local government planning process; mainstreaming gender in planning process; mapping the census questionnaire and data items to basic statistics and indicators for planning; and practices in dissemination and communication of census results. The training workshop also demonstrated the use of REDATAM for retrieving and presenting census data.

As the concluding activity of the workshop each country identified areas that need to be improved in relation to the topics covered in the workshop and proposed a results-based action plan to improve use of census data for local planning and policy making.

In response to a request by Vanuatu National Statistics Office (VNSO), Ministry of Finance and Economic Management, a training workshop on “Applying Small Area Estimation Techniques for Poverty Mapping in Vanuatu” was conducted by Statistical Institute for Asia and the Pacific (SIAP) during 29 October - 9 November 2012 in Chiba, Japan. Two official statisticians who are expected to assist VNSO in producing poverty and wellbeing atlas of 2010 for Vanuatu were trained on the basics of small area estimation techniques; enhanced their skills in applying Povmap software for producing Vanuatu poverty maps; and gained experience in the use of household survey and population and housing census data to produce tentative estimates of poverty incidence rate in area councils of Vanuatu. At the end of the training workshop, participants were able to produce and map tentative estimates of poverty incidence in the area councils of Vanuatu.

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) organized the conference in collaboration with the ESCAP Statistics Division. The conference brought together a range of national stakeholders: official data producers (national statistical offices); data users (national planning agencies); and national agencies in a position to advocate for better data production and usage within the government (national mechanisms for advancement of women).

The conference was organized as part of the efforts to support the strengthening of capacities of key national institutions mandated to measure, plan and monitor development strategies and to encourage inter-agency cooperation for mainstreaming gender into statistics production and use in development planning. The conference, therefore, specifically aimed to enhance knowledge and appreciation of gender statistics and its links to development planning; increase familiarity of strategies for promoting demand and use of gender statistics in national planning systems; improve awareness of international standards and country initiatives on gender statistics; and learn methods and strategies for communicating gender data.

Knowledge gained by participants from this conference is expected to enhance their ability to mainstream gender in national planning for better development results for men and women and to track results in gender equality, which is also relevant for international reporting. Most importantly, the increased capacity of government institutions to produce and use high quality and robust gender data would allow for more gender-inclusive growth in countries.

More information on the conference and related documents can be found at: http://www.unescap.org/stat/gender-stat/Regional-Conference2012/index.asp.

Several ESCAP staff members participated in the 4th OECD World Forum on “Measuring Well-Being for Development and Policy Making” in Delhi, co-organized by OECD and the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, Government of India. The ESCAP Executive Secretary, Noeleen Heyzer, served as Chair for a plenary round table session on “Beyond 2015 – The Future of Development Goals”. The Director of the Statistics Division, Haishan Fu, also was Chair for a panel discussion on Quality of Life and Investing in Education and Skills.

Discussions at the 4th OECD World Forum covered measurement issues for a broad set of themes ranging from quality of life and subjective well-being, to the material inputs from economic wealth, to governance and the role of gender and social groups, to environmental sustainability. The Forum concluded with a stock taking of areas where progress has been made, such as on time use survey guidelines, health statistics, and the System of Environmental-Economic Accounting (SEEA), as well as areas where challenges remain and further research is required. The speakers, presentations and information on the outcomes are available at the Forum website (http://www.oecdindia.in/).

The Twelfth Meeting of the Washington Group (WG) on Disability Statistics was hosted by ESCAP at the UNCC in Bangkok from 23 to 25 October 2012. The meeting was attended by Australia, Cambodia, China, Japan, Maldives, Mongolia, Philippines, Sri Lanka, and Thailand, fourteen countries from outside the Asia and the Pacific region, and four development partners.

The meeting discussed: i) the results from further analyses of data collected from countries using the WG Short measure questions, and country experiences; ii) additional work on extended set on functioning; iii) methodological issues facing the WG including the development of questions for children, and the issue of designing questions for the measurement of environmental barriers and participation; iv) summary of the country reports, and an update on other Washington Group and collaborative activities; v) WG governance issues; and vi) objectives of the 13th meeting.

The former AHSOM (ASEAN Heads of Statistical Offices Meeting) was in 2011 transformed into the ACSS Committee to pursue further integration of statistics among ASEAN member States. In support of this, the ASEANStats Division has been placed within the ASEAN Integration Monitoring Office, signalling a repositioning of its work to be more directly linked to the broader ASEAN efforts to advance integration and connectivity.

During its second session, held in September 2012, the ACSS Committee adopted a Code of Practice for ASEAN member States and the ASEAN secretariat on the development, production, dissemination and communication of ASEAN statistics. A draft policy on data sharing, confidentiality and dissemination was discussed for further development. The Code of Practice and the draft policy have been developed with inspiration and support from the European Union (including Eurostat), bearing in mind that statistics collaboration among ASEAN member States would at least for the foreseeable future lack a regulatory framework such as the one governing statistics collaboration within the European Union.

Other topics on the agenda included harmonization of trade & investment statistics to improve monitoring of progress towards integration; and strengthening ASEANStats.

Committee members made positive reference to ESCAP’s statistics programme, including capacity development and analytical work conducted by the Statistics Division and SIAP, including the establishment of Partners for Statistics Development in Asia-Pacific, the MDG progress reports and methodology, the economic & vital statistics initiatives, and SIAP trainings.

The “Joint Media Statement” issued at the conclusion of the session contains further details & is available at http://www.asean.org/resources/category/asean-statistics-2.

Following the second session of the ACSS Committee, the “Regional Workshop on Strategic Statistical Planning: Towards a Stronger ASEAN Community Statistical System” was held in Jakarta, Indonesia, in November 2012, to take the decisions of the Committee forward and discuss approaches to ensure effective and sustainable functioning of the ACSS.

The Workshop agreed on recommendations for the formulation of a Regional Strategy for the Development of Statistics (RSDS) 2016–2020, the strengthening of the ASEANstats, the ACSS and the National Statistical Systems (NSSs) of ASEAN member States, and engagement with development partners.

Much discussion focused on approaches to ensure coherence and consistency, if not convergence, between the RSDS and National Strategies for the Development of Statistics (NSDSs). The Workshop recommended that coherence between national and regional strategies be a combination of a top-down and bottom-up process: the strategies must inform and shape one another. The need to align priorities for statistics development at the national and subregional levels with regional and international programmes, such as those of the UN Statistical Commission and the ESCAP Committee on Statistics, was also highlighted.

The Workshop agenda, presentations, and conclusions are available at the following address: http://paris21.org/jakarta-nov2012.

The 67th Commission session in May 2011 adopted a resolution on Civil Registration and Vital Statistics improvement, which called upon Member States to review and assess current functioning of their civil registration system and quality of vital statistics and use the assessment results to develop and implement comprehensive and costed strategies and plans to strengthen both systems.

The launch meeting of the comprehensive Assessment of the Civil Registration and Vital Statistics Systems of Bangladesh brought together representatives from different government agencies involved in civil registration and vital statistics in Bangladesh as well as development partners.

Staff of the Statistics Division of ESCAP and WHO South-East Asia Regional Office (SEARO) presented the assessment tool developed by WHO in collaboration with the Health Information Systems Knowledge Hub of the School of Population Health of the University of Queensland. At the end of the detailed assessment, the country will have a strategic plan to implement prioritized improvements identified by the working subgroups and approved by a broader group of stakeholders who will facilitate their implementation.

During the meeting, participants became familiar with the assessment framework and tool and the members of the subgroups had the opportunity to interact and share their experiences and current practices in their respective roles in the CRVS systems in Bangladesh. High level stakeholders from different agencies expressed their commitment to work on this initiative during the closing of the launch meeting.

As a contribution to the post-2015 debate, ESCWA is leading the preparation of a report to be entitled “Beyond 2015: The Future UN Development Agenda”. The objective of the report is to provide the regional perspective on development priorities. Each of the regional commissions (ECA, ECLAC, ESCAP and ESCWA) has leaded the production of a specific chapter or provided inputs and feedback. The four chapters of the report cover the following themes: (i) a historical perspective on the current MDG agenda; (ii) a review of progress in the implementation of MDGs; (iii) key global and regional priority development issues beyond 2015; (iv) the way forward.

The objective of the Meeting of the Advisory Board was to review the draft chapters of the report and agree on the way forward. The meeting was attended by prominent experts from the different regions, representatives of the regional commissions and resource persons who shared their views on the chapters. The discussions will be reflected in the final drafts of the chapters of the report.

The fourth meeting of Partners for Statistics Development in Asia-Pacific was held from 17:30-19:00 hours, on 12 December 2012, in Bangkok, in conjunction with the third session of the Committee on Statistics.

The meeting was attended by ADB, FAO, ILO, OECD, SESRIC, SPC, UNICEF, UNIDO, and UNFPA. Representatives from Australia, Bhutan, India, and Philippines also attended the meeting.

In the meeting, partners discussed the progress and priorities in the areas of partners’ collaboration. Partners recognized that for regional initiatives put in motion to achieve the goals of the Committee, aligning the work of the partners and drawing on available resources would be instrumental. Partners agreed that they can play an important role in raising awareness among their national counterparts regarding the regional initiatives, and thereby ensure commitment.

The 2012 edition of the Statistical Yearbook for Asia and the Pacific was released online on 6th November 2012. Starting from this edition, the Yearbook will be available as a printed edition every two years and as an online edition in intermediate years.

The 2012 edition of the Yearbook provides updated data tables similar to data tables in previous hardcopy editions of the Yearbook. Tables are made available online as MS Excel table in a manner more suitable to the online format of the publication and complementing the online database which offer long time series for the same set of indicators.

The 2012 edition of the Yearbook also innovates in providing country profiles for each regional members of ESCAP. Country profiles present key indicators selected from the complete list of indicators that are published in the Yearbook. For each country, statistical information is presented in tables with the latest available values and numerous statistical charts presenting trends over the last 20 years, and, where possible, comparison with regional and world averages. The country profiles are complemented by regional and sub-regional tables providing an overview of Asia-Pacific in comparison with other major regions of the world and selected country groups. Country profiles are also made available online in a ready-to-print format and aim at providing a quick, easy-to-use reference on each country in ESCAP region.

Jurairat Sajjapongse joined the Statistics Division of ESCAP from December 2012 to support work on the improvement of civil registration and vital statistics. She had previously worked at ESCAP’s MPDD division to support the implementation and activities under the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) Project.

Jurairat has an M.A. in Economics from Claremont Graduate University, an M.A. in International Economics and Finance from Chulalongkorn University, and a B.B.A., majoring in finance, from Thammasat University. She is currently a PhD Candidate in Economics working on her proposal and dissertation on Thailand’s Monetary Policy and Exchange Rate Variability. Jurairat’s areas of interest include macroeconomics, growth and development, monetary and fiscal policy, and international economics.

Emanuela Furfaro arrived at ESCAP as an intern in Trade and Investment Division in June 2012 and joined the Statistics Division in October 2012 on a three-month contract as an Individual Contractor. She is working on the development of a wiki site on modernization of official statistics.

She is currently a graduate student of Biostatistics and Experimental Statistics at the University of Milano-Bicocca, Italy where she also obtained her Bachelor degree in Statistics and Information Management. Previously she was an exchange student in Turkey and Australia. She worked as a teaching assistant as well as volunteered for promoting the study of statistics in high school and for the promotion of international exchanges.

• Ms Catherine Burdin, Responsable du Pôle Projets statistiques / Head of Statistical projects Department, Adetef, Paris, France.
• Mr Takahashi.Yoshiaki, Member of Steering Group of Happiness, National Policy Unit, the Government of Japan, JICA.
• Ms Susan Creane, Coordinator (Head of the Mission), International Monetary Fund (IMF).