UN DESA’s Statistics Division is organizing a sub-regional workshop for the East African Community (EAC) countries, entitled “Environment Statistics in support of the Implementation of the Framework for the Development of Environment Statistics (FDES 2013)” led by the Division, in collaboration with the EAC Secretariat. It will take place in Arusha, United Republic of Tanzania from 6 to 10 July 2015, with hosting and on-ground support being provided by the EAC Secretariat and the United Republic of Tanzania.
Several other international and inter-governmental organizations will be participating in the Workshop, including the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UN-ECA) and the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA).
The Workshop is one of the activities of the United Nations Development Account project “Supporting Member States in developing and strengthening environment statistics and integrated environmental-economic accounting for improved monitoring of sustainable development”, of which Module A focuses on strengthening environment statistics at the EAC Secretariat and its five member states, Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda and the United Republic of Tanzania. A similar Workshop was held in Mauritius from 26 to 29 January 2015 for the non-EAC member states that belong to the COMESA region.
This Workshop follows the United Nations Statistical Commission’s endorsement in 2013 of the revised FDES 2013 as the framework for strengthening environment statistics programmes in countries. The Commission also recognized the FDES 2013 as a useful tool in the context of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Post-2015 Development Agenda. The FDES 2013 is a multi-purpose conceptual and statistical framework which marks out the scope of environment statistics. It provides an organizing structure to guide the collection and compilation of environment statistics at the national level and is very relevant for policy analysis and decision making.
The Workshop will focus on, inter alia, building national capacities for the implementation of the FDES 2013. It aims at providing statisticians from National Statistical Offices and experts from Ministries of Environment (or equivalent institutions) with detailed knowledge and understanding of contemporary approaches to environment statistics, thus allowing them to identify gaps and deficiencies in environmental data, and contribute to the production of regular, accurate and reliable environment statistics.
Key elements of the Workshop include: in-depth presentation on and discussion about the FDES 2013, including its components, sub-components, topics and Basic/Core Sets of Environment Statistics; application of the Environment Statistics Self-Assessment Tool (ESSAT); definition of key concepts and terminology in the field of environment statistics spanning topics such as water, waste, biodiversity, agriculture, emissions of greenhouse gases, extreme events and disasters, and environmental health; use of various data sources such as geospatial information systems, remote sensing, scientific research, administrative data; and an introduction to the methodological Manual for the Basic Set of Environment Statistics currently under development.
The Workshop content is very relevant to the SDGs since many of the environment statistics to be discussed and analysed are necessary for the measurement of countries’ progress toward achieving the Goals. The implementation of the FDES 2013 will help countries address the increasing demand for integrated information in support of integrated policies in the follow-up to Rio+20 and the Post-2015 Development Agenda through the strengthening of environmental statistics and indicators. The Workshop will also discuss the development of a regional programme on environment statistics for the EAC member states.
For more information: Framework for the Development of Environment Statistics (FDES)
