Ladies and gentlemen,
It gives me great pleasure to welcome all of
you to the first meeting of the Working Party
on the Application of New Technology to Population
Data. I should like to take this opportunity
to express my appreciation of your acceptance
to serve as members of this Working Party and,
in advance, for the valuable work you will be
undertaking on improving the application of
technology to population statistics in the Asian
and Pacific region. I would also like to express
our sincere thanks to your organizations for
their cooperation and hope that this spirit
of collaboration will be strengthened during
the implementation of this project. I should
also like to express our appreciation for the
participation of Mr Uwe Deichmann from the United
Nations Statistics Division, Mr Lau Kak En of
SIAP and Mr Nuri Ozsever, our staff member on
the local UNFPA Country Support Team; I am sure
all of them will contribute significantly to
the deliberations.
During the past decade the application of information
technology has enabled many national statistical
offices to achieve quite significant gains in
the quality and timely availability of data.
However, not all national statistical offices
have been able to capitalize on the full range
of technological advances, especially in the
less developed countries of the region. Even
for processing the censuses of the 1990 round,
many offices utilized resource demanding and
not necessarily efficient combinations of tailor-made
in-house programs and mainframe computers. On-line
access to data, user-friendly databases, dissemination
through the Internet and bulletin boards are
by now very familiar to the general statistical
community, but not as commonly found in the
developing countries.
I am certain that this distinguished Working
Party is, dare I say, painfully aware of the
role of human resource development in the effective
application of information technology. The design
and implementation of data processing systems
depend heavily on the availability of trained
and skilled human resources, as well as on the
management approaches adopted. In the field
of population statistics, we continue to deal
with the familiar steps of data collection,
compilation, processing and dissemination; these
steps have not undergone drastic changes, but
the systems and approaches utilized to accomplish
them vary from country to country. This project
concerns approaches to systems development with
the ultimate aim of improving the quality, timely
availability and usefulness of the statistical
outputs and services of national statistical
offices.
The work that you will soon commence is generously
funded by the United Nations Population Fund
(UNFPA), under a project called ?Application
of New Technology in Population Data Collection,
Processing, Dissemination and Presentation?.
The sharing of country experiences in the effective
utilization of modern technology has been identified
as a useful approach for promoting the improvement
of population statistics in the ESCAP region.
Under the project, eight experts from eight
countries have been selected to form the present
Working Party: the aim is to technically guide
the ESCAP secretariat in the implementation
of activities designed to accomplish the objectives
laid out in the work plan. This process will
be strengthened through contributions from your
organizations in the form of substantive cooperation
- such as making available products, services
and technical information.
The project design gives the Working Party
considerable freedom in planning its own work.
I encourage you to be as creative and imaginative
as possible within the time-frame of the project.
In this inception meeting, the Working Party
is invited to review its terms of reference
and outline a work plan for the next two years.
You will initiate project operations by identifying
information technology applications that could
be implemented in three pilot countries which
you will be selecting. The idea is to develop
suitable applications in these pilot countries
based primarily on existing commercial and public
domain software. You will also discuss approaches
to developing guidelines that could be useful
in increasing the effectiveness of the use of
information technology in population statistics.
Finally, you will have an opportunity to decide
how the results of the project should be published.
We are confident that with the rich background
and extensive experiences of its members, the
Working Party will make an important contribution
in promoting effective utilization of modern
technology in population data collection, processing,
dissemination and presentation. I look forward
to the outcome of your deliberations and wish
you every success in your endeavours.
Thank you.
|