E/ESCAP/STAT.11/5
1 October 1998
ORIGINAL: ENGLISH

ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COMMISSION FOR ASIA AND THE PACIFIC

Committee on Statistics
Eleventh session
24-26 November 1998
Bangkok

Introduction

1. The Regional Meeting of Heads of Statistics provides direction to the Statistics and Demography programmes of the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC), and evaluates its services to countries. The latest was held in Noumea from 1 to 5 September 1997. Representatives of 21 SPC member countries/territories and 9 observers from international organisations, universities and other institutions attended the meeting. The meeting was only possible due to the generous financial assistance of the Government of New Zealand.

2. The Meeting considered each of the recommendations from the Tenth Regional Conference of Statisticians and particularly noted:

1. the increased statistical co-ordination efforts by statistical offices;
2. the progress made in improving the PC/Trade processing system;
3. the importance of an SPC Pacific Islander Statistical Research Officer position;
4. the importance of theory in analytical training; and
5. the need for a forum to discuss classifications, data processing and computerisation.

3. The meeting endorsed the general direction currently undertaken by the Programme, concentrating on training and advisory services. Electronic communication was considered an important emerging issue for the Programme and co-ordination of technical assistance with other agencies should continue as a high priority.

4. Countries and territories endorsed the following directions of the Population/Demography Programme as meeting their needs:

1. a balanced training programme;
2. emphasis on user-friendly and relevant demographic analysis and reports;
3. policy-relevant demographic research;
4. flexibility in ad hoc technical assistance; and
5. a clearing-house role in demographic and population data.

Meeting Recommendations

5. The recommendations can be classified in a number of ways. They can be directed at countries, the SPC, other agencies or a combination of these. Those recommendations directed at the SPC can be with respect to continuing activities currently performed within budget allocations or with respect to new activities which may or may not require additional funding.

6. These recommendations are:

No. 1
Countries and territories (with the assistance of the SPC) continue to give priority to statistical co-ordination and in particular ensuring the standardisation of classifications and data comparability.
No. 2
The Statistical Research Officer position for Pacific Island statistical office staff be re-established as a high priority, with a research and development emphasis for the position.
No. 3
Technical issues such as classifications, data processing and computerisation be addressed in a technical forum immediately prior to the next Regional Meeting of Heads of Statistics, and requested the SPC to seek funding for such a meeting.
No. 4
The SPC and donor agencies continue to place the highest priority on statistical training and ensure that adequate resources are allocated to the full range of statistical training activities undertaken by the Statistics Programme.
No. 5
The development of an in-house training capability be pursued in those countries and territories capable of supplying such a service and the SPC provide technical support for such in-house training initiatives.
No. 6
The SPC seek additional funding sources for assistance in providing short-term consultancy missions to assist member countries and territories in their statistical projects, and collaborative assistance be delivered with other national, regional and international agencies.
No. 7
The SPC continue to give the annual SIAP and ESCAP meetings the highest priority in terms of SPC meeting representation.
No. 8
The SPC actively pursue the development of a long-term regional statistical project, similar in nature to the ADB RETA AStatistical Improvement in South Pacific Developing Member Countries@, covering all the countries and territories of the region.
No. 9
In recognition of SPC's multi-sectoral Programmes and professionals, corporate focus on research and training and its institutional data analytical capability, the SPC information services be strengthened to enable a regional socio-economic information database to be developed by the SPC (in consultation with other regional agencies).
No. 10
The Demography Programme continue to support the member countries and territories in the development of their analytical capabilities in regard to demographic and population information.
No. 11
The Demography Programme continue to place a high priority on the development of country profiles.
No. 12
The Demography Programme provide technical assistance to member countries and territories in the 2000 Round of Censuses, in collaboration with other national, regional and international agencies.
No. 13
The SPC proceed with developing and disseminating to countries and territories a proposal for implementing the SPC data security facility.
No. 14
The member countries and territories try to improve their planning for the technical support they require and the SPC develop an annual forward work programme of SPC technical assistance to countries and territories.
No. 15
The SPC play a facilitation role in assisting countries and territories to overcome technical problems relating to electronic communication and to utilise such services effectively and efficiently.
No. 16
The next Regional Meeting of Heads of Statistics be held in 1999.
No. 17
Pacific regional agencies make every attempt to attend the Regional Meeting of Heads of Statistics to ensure appropriate co-ordination.

7. Meeting delegates were resolute in their endorsement of all recommendations as high priority for the region and if this was not the case, they would not have been recommendations at the Meeting.

8. However, a process to prioritise recommendations was undertaken to satisfy the requirement that all recommendations addressed to the SPC with financial implications be prioritised. The prioritised recommendations were:

Priority 1: Recommendation No. 2
Priority 2: Recommendation No. 4
Priority 3: Recommendation No. 16

9. The common themes to come through both the recommendations of the Meeting and the discussions held were:

1. A comprehensive training programme to improve the statistical capability of the region should continue.
2. A need to extend the range of available statistics and analysis of such data in a co-ordinated manner and using standardised classifications across the region.