DESA News

Volume 17, No.08 - August 2013

Capacity development


Strengthening national statistical systems

Seminars on Developing Programmes for the Implementation of the System of National Accounts 2008 (2008 SNA) and Supporting Statistics and the System of Environmental-Economic Accounting 2012 (2012 SEEA) and Supporting Statistics in the Pacific region will be held in Apia, Samoa, from 20 – 23 August.

The seminars are organized by DESA’s Statistics Division, in collaboration with the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, Australian Bureau of Statistics, Samoa Bureau of Statistics, Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme, Pacific Financial Technical Assistance Centre, and Secretariat of the Pacific Community.

The 2008 SNA seminar is organised to assist participating Pacific countries with initiating the formulation of a national strategy and implementation programme for the 2008 System of National Accounts (SNA) and supporting socio-economic statistics with the objective of strengthening the national statistical system in support of improved policy making. It is expected that this initiative will lead to a multi-year statistical programme helping countries to change over to the 2008 SNA with a view to producing timely comparable national accounts statistics and short-term economic indicators which fully meets the user needs as well as complies with the international standards.

The objective of the SEEA seminar is to assist Pacific countries with developing an implementation strategy for the SEEA Central Framework on the basis of policy priorities and statistical development as well as to develop a sub-regional implementation strategy. It is expected that this initiative will lead to a multi-year statistical programme assisting  countries to assist in the adoption of the SEEA 2012 Central Framework with a view to producing timely comparable economic and environmental statistics based on selected environmental-economic accounts  and environmental-economic indicators which fully meets the user needs as well as complies with the international standards.

The seminars brings together senior managers from national statistical offices and senior representatives from government agencies using economic and environmental information for policy setting from countries in the Pacific region to discuss the development of an regional and national implementation strategy for the 2008 SNA and the SEEA 2012 Central Framework. The aim is also to share experiences among countries in the region and facilitate cooperation amongst the neighbouring countries as well as north-south and triangular cooperation in support of the SNA and SEEA implementation strategy in the Pacific region.

For more information:  http://unstats.un.org/unsd/newsletter/globalstat_unsd_calendar.htm