A regional capacity building workshop will take place in Santiago, Chile on 4 May, informing civil society from Latin America and the Caribbean on the post-2015 development agenda negotiations and the High-level Political Forum on sustainable development (HLPF) and provide guidance on how to engage in these processes.

The workshop aims to provide civil society representatives with the tools and knowledge to engage effectively with the processes that will determine the future sustainable development agenda. To facilitate participation in this capacity building session, a limited number of participants from the Latin American and Caribbean region are being funded to attend the event.

The workshop is being organized by the Economic and Social Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) and UN DESA’s Division for Sustainable Development. It will take place in the margins of the First Meeting of the Negotiating Committee on Principle 10, which will also be open for civil society participation.

For more information: Sustainable Development Knowledge Platform

UN DESA’s Statistics Division is organizing a regional training workshop within the UN Development Account project “Supporting Developing Countries Measure Progress Towards Achieving a Green Economy” in cooperation with the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), on 5-8 May in Hanoi, Vietnam.

The workshop will primarily be a technical workshop that covers topics identified by countries during the first part of the project as needing attention and guidance.

Key elements of the workshop will cover four main statistical domains, namely environment, agriculture, energy statistics, and statistics on new themes related to green economy (e.g. environmental goods and services, green jobs). The contents of each of the fields cover the following: general introduction to the theme; main frameworks and international recommendations covering these fields; internationally agreed definitions and metadata for selected statistics underlying green economy indicators; and detailed description and compilation methods for selected indicators from the reference green economy indicators list of the project.

The workshop will also finalize the discussion on the direct technical assistance to the pilot countries that will take place in the months following this workshop. A similar workshop took place in April 2015, for the Latin America and the Caribbean region in Lima, Peru.

For more information: UN DESA’s Statistics Division

UN DESA’s Statistics Division is organizing an International Workshop on Short-term Statistics in Beijing, China, from 18-20 May, in collaboration with the National Bureau of Statistics of China.

This workshop is part of a series of events organized under the project on strengthening statistical capacity development in China and other developing countries in Asia funded by the Chinese Government.

The main objectives are to: (a) discuss the compilation and dissemination of short term economic statistics – e.g. business cycle composite indicators, economic tendency surveys and rapid estimates; (b) share country experience; and (c) take stock of the status of implementation and challenges in the compilation of short term statistics in the region.

The Workshop will also review the template for short-term economic statistics and metadata which was developed to guide and facilitate the compilation and dissemination of these indicators in countries.

For more information: UN DESA’s Statistics Division

UN DESA traveled to Ulanbaatar, Mongolia in March, to provide capacity-building support for the country’s national voluntary presentation (NVP) to the Economic and Social Council’s 2015 high-level segment in July.

This year’s NVP countries will address broadly the 2015 ECOSOC theme, “Managing the transition from the Millennium Development Goals to the sustainable development goals: What it will take”. UN DESA was represented by Mr. Neil Pierre (Office for Ecosoc Support and Coordination) and Mr. John O’Toole (Division for Social Policy and Development).

During their 24-27 March trip, the department met with Ministries and partners from across Government and contributed to Mongolia’s consultative, multi-stakeholder workshop in preparation of the finalization of Mongolia’s national report in advance of their NVP at UN headquarters in July.

The workshop was hosted by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and organized to ensure openness, inter-activity and out-of-the-box thinking among participants on the status of the nation’s development progress and opportunities and challenges inherent to the coming transition to a more complex sustainable development agenda. Key messages emerging from the discussion included the importance of strengthening institutions and filling capacity gaps in order to address the unfinished business of the MDGs together with implementing the new agenda.

In the weeks and months ahead, UN DESA will deepen its support to Mongolia by overseeing the finalization of the NVP report, preparing the Ministerial visit to ECOSOC’s high-level segment in July and supporting national stakeholder consultations on the long-term vision for Mongolia’s future.

For more information: The Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC)