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.