Asia-Pacific Stats Café Series: Developing National Indicator Frameworks to address data needs for Inclusive Policies

Ms Gemma Van Halderen has over thirty years of experience in government statistics and more recently, as Chief Data Officer in the Australian Government Department of Social Services. From 2018-2021, she was Director of the UN ESCAP Statistics Division and worked extensively with governments, multilateral agencies and the statistical community to support developing nations across Asia and the Pacific meet their data obligations under the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and respond to the global COVID-19 pandemic.

Ms Van Halderen has been a member of the statistical profession since her undergraduate days, filling executive committee roles with her local branch of the Australian Statistical Society before expanding to the International Association for Official Statistics and becoming an elected member of the International Statistics Institute.  She was the focal point for the Association’s Young Statistician Prize from 2014-2023, and participated in World Statistics Congresses in Hong Kong, Malaysia, Brazil, Turkey and Australia.

Ms. Van Halderen holds an Honour’s degree in mathematical statistics from the Australian National University.

Mr. Lay Chhan has been in his current post as Deputy Director General of National Institute of Statistics (NIS) of the Ministry of Planning in 2013. He leads National Statistical Indicators Database System Unit in maintaining, updating and disseminating of data for National Strategic Development Plan, including Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). He also works as assistant to the Director General, responsible for leading and managing the preparation of National Strategy for the Development of Statistics (NSDS), statistical coordination and international cooperation. With 20 years of experience in Statistics, his focus is on survey, national accounts statistics, economic statistics, and statistical policy and development. He also has expertise on various statistical surveys such as household socio-economic survey, labor force survey, disability module survey, and establishment survey. Mr. Lay has participated in numerous international workshops and meetings, including extensive training courses on practical statistics, sampling design, data analysis using computer programming, project management and leadership. He holds a Master’s Degree in Business Administration from Asian Institute of Technology, Thailand.

Arman Bidarbakht Nia is the head of Statistical Data Management Unit at UNESCAP-Statistics Division. Arman’s areas of research and professional interest include measures for human development, survey methodology, and micro-econometrics. Prior to joining UN, Arman worked as survey statistician at Statistical Centre of Iran (SCI).