Workshop for sub-Saharan African countries on Integrating a Gender Perspective into Statistics will take place in Kampala, Uganda on 4-7 December

DESA’s Statistics Division, in collaboration with the Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS), is organizing a capacity building workshop for sub-Saharan African countries on Integrating a Gender Perspective into Statistics.

The purpose of the workshop is to present the newly developed Manual for Integrating a Gender Perspective into Statisticsand train national statisticians on the production and use of gender statistics.

For more information:
Calendar of Events of the Statistics Division

Capacity development workshop on citizen engagement and the post-2015 development agenda in the Arab Region will be held on 5-6 December in Beirut, Lebanon

Senior government officials and civil society representatives from the Arab region will discuss the intrinsic and instrumental benefits of engaging citizens in setting and delivering the national development agenda, beyond 2015. They will do so at a workshop organized by DESA’s Division for Public Administration and Development Management (DPADM) with the UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA), following up to the requests for further work on participatory governance, received during a seminar in Rabat, Morocco in October 2011, also organized by DESA with ESCWA.

In Beirut, around 30 delegates from 14 countries are expected to discuss how governments can foster more public participation and social inclusion in the region, in the transition after the 2011 uprisings. Workshop plenary and group sessions are designed to allow for an enriching exchange of views in anticipation of national consultations on setting the global, regional and national post-2015 development agendas. 

Participants will discuss the specific conditions that their countries are facing, taking into account the characteristics of gradual or more rapid transition, particularly in relation to public participation in development management and public policy setting. They will also make recommendations on how best to assess their public institutional capacities to provide information to and consult with the public and involve citizens in decision-making.  

An important focus of the workshop will be the presentation of a draft Citizen Engagement Self-Assessment Questionnaire, designed to assist governments in carrying out this assessment, for discussion and pilot. Other expected outcomes include a summary of deliberations and enhanced knowledge on the part of the participants on workshop topics. 

For more information:
DESA’s Division for Public Administration and Development Management (DPADM)

UN Regional Workshop on Statistics of International Trade in Services will be held on 11-14 December in Bogota, Colombia

In 2010, the United Nations Statistical Commission adopted the Manual on Statistics of International Trade in Services (MSITS 2010) and requested the international community to make extra efforts in providing capacity building activities to developing countries. In this context DESA’s Statistics Division will organize a training workshop on compilation issues of MSITS 2010 for Latin American countries. The workshop is organized jointly with the national statistical office of Colombia and with support from the US Bureau of Economic Analysis.

The agenda of the workshop will cover topics such as the general framework of MSITS 2010, the main data collection and data processing issues with special attention to enterprise surveys and the use of ITRS, the compilation issues related to measuring Travel services and Tourism-related international trade in services, the compilation of foreign affiliates statistics and some cross-cutting issues such as quality management, meta-data and the use of information technology.

For more information:
Calendar of Events of the Statistics Division

At a training workshop of the United Nations Public Administration Network (UNPAN) Partners and Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) Member States took place in Cape Town, South Africa, 10-12 October 2012

Ms. Haiyan Qian, Director of DESA’s Division for Public Administration and Development Management (DPADM), delivered welcome remarks and a substantive presentation on “What is Open Data and Open Government Data Around the World” through pre-recorded video messages.

Participants agreed that : i) an enabling environment is fundamental to the effective implementation and sustainability of Open Government Data (OGD) initiatives and that the initiatives have to start at the top, in the middle, and at the bottom; (ii) creating open processes for design and implementation of OGD initiatives is equally important; (iii) political, legal, organizational, technical, economic and social dimensions should be carefully considered while developing benchmarking frameworks to measure open data progress in countries; (iv) records are fundamental to the effective implementation and sustainability of open government data initiatives in order to provide verifiable, quality sources of information; (v) more research is needed to measure the impact of open government data initiatives.

Participants also discussed the future of UNPAN, focusing on what the network needs to do differently to stay current and relevant to policy makers, experts and practitioners, particularly in view of deliberations on the Post-2015 Development Agenda which are underway. They also discussed the issues surrounding open government data and reviewed the draft open government data toolkit currently under development by DPADM.

Strong interest was registered by Member States, particularly from Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, Seychelles, and Zambia, to contribute to a global open data portal in the event that the platform is offered by DPADM. Introduction of the Open Government Data Toolkit was found very useful and timely not only by Member States but also by the regional organizations present in the Workshop.

The workshop was organized by DPADM in cooperation with the Centre for Public Service Innovation (CPSI) of the Ministry for Public Service and Administration of the Republic of South Africa.

More information:
DESA’s Division for Public Administration and Development Management (DPADM)