DESA News

Volume 18, No.02 - February 2014

Capacity development


Supporting national statistical systems

statistical_systemsSeminars on Developing a Programme on Integrated Statistics in support of the Implementation of the 2008 SNA and the System of Environmental-Economic Accounting 2012 (2012 SEEA) in the Caribbean will be held in Castries, Saint Lucia on 3-5 February.

The seminars are organized back-to-back by UN DESA’s Statistics Division, in collaboration with the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America, Caricom Secretariat, Eastern Caribbean Central Bank, United Nations Environment Programme, United Nations Development Programme, the World Bank and the Saint Lucia Government Statistics Department.

The first seminar is organized to strengthen the capacity of participating Caribbean countries in formulating national and regional strategies for the implementation of the integrated economic statistics programme in support of the implementation of the 2008 SNA for improved policy making. It is expected that this initiative will lead to a multi-year national statistical programmes to improve data quality, and cost-effectiveness and lower response burden of the statistical production process from basic statistics to national accounts, which fully meets the user needs for evidence based policy and decision making.

The objective of the second seminar is to inform the participating Caribbean countries on the System of Environmental-Economic Accounting as an important statistical tool for developing integrated information systems on the environment and its relation with the economy. The seminar will discuss the global regional and future sub-regional implementation strategy for the SEEA Central Framework on the basis of policy priorities and statistical development. It is expected that this initiative will lead to the progressive adoption of the SEEA 2012 Central Framework by both the statistical and policy community. A multi-year statistical programme should support the production of a coherent core set of timely and comparable economic and environmental statistics based on selected environmental-economic accounts and environmental-economic indicators, which fully meets the national policy priorities as well as complies with the international standards.

The seminars bring together senior managers from national statistical offices and senior representatives from government agencies producing and using economic and environmental information for policy setting from countries in the Caribbean. The seminars will also provide a forum 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 Caribbean.

For more information:

Developing Programmes for Implementing the 2008 SNA, the SEEA and Supporting Statistics in the CARICOM Region

Experts gather to discuss international arrangement on forests

Forest_eventThe first Ad-Hoc Expert Group Meeting on International Arrangements on Forests (IAF) is scheduled to take place in the United Nations Office in Nairobi, Kenya from 24 to 28 February.

At its tenth session, held on 8-19 April 2013, the UN Forum on Forests (UNFF) adopted a resolution establishing an open-ended intergovernmental ad hoc expert group (AHEG) as part of the intersessional preparatory activities for the review of the international arrangement on forests (IAF) at the eleventh session of the Forum in May 2015.

The AHEG is tasked to review the performance and effectiveness of the IAF as well as the attainment of the multi-year programme of work. To this end, AHEG will review the inputs provided by various stakeholders, as well as the outcome of the work of the independent assessment of the IAF, and based on this review will put forth a set of recommendations providing a strategic direction on the function and institutional arrangements of the IAF for the period beyond 2015 to the eleventh session of the UN Forum on Forests (UNFF11).

The AHEG will hold no more than two meetings prior to UNFF11, subject to the availability of extra-budgetary resources. This event was decided by the UNFF11 Bureau During its recent meeting in Vienna, Austria and it also agreed that second meeting of AHEG will be held in New York towards the end of 2014 or early 2015.

For more information:

UN Forum on Forests