2003-2004 ANNUAL REPORT

STATISTICS

Major achievements in 2003

In 2003, the 51st plenary session of the Conference of European Statisticians was organized according to a new structure. The Conference was attended by over 130 delegates representing 50 national offices and by almost 20 international organizations, United Nations departments and specialized agencies. The Governor of the Bank of Canada delivered a keynote speech via video link. Major outcomes of the Conference include the launching of the following projects: measuring globalization (the Multinational Enterprises project); statistical confidentiality (develop principles for the dissemination of microdata); research on family and household statistics; development of a new set of recommendations for the 2010 round of population and housing censuses in the UNECE region.

The Conference decided that an annual UNECE statistical programme was to be compiled, starting with the year 2004, with the inclusion of statistical activities of other UNECE divisions.

The ILO/UNECE/IMF/World Bank/OECD/Eurostat International Manual on Consumer Price Indices was finalized. The Manual is ready for adoption and release.

As a side event to the World Summit on the Information Society, the Statistical Division prepared, together with the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, the International Telecommunication Union, UNESCO Institute for Statistics, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and EUROSTAT, the Workshop on Monitoring the Information Society. It is envisaged that the Workshop will make concrete recommendations about ICT statistics and indicators to the United Nations Statistical Commission for endorsement as an international standard.

The capacity to monitor progress towards the Millennium Development Goals and sustainable development through relevant and internationally comparable indicators that are part of official statistics has been created within the Statistical Division. In cooperation with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), workshops on standard indicators for human development and Millennium Development Goals reporting have been organized for analysts from UNDP South-East Europe and CIS country offices.

The UNECE Gender Statistics Database has been launched. It is accessible free of charge on the web site of the Statistical Division at the following address: http://www.unece.org/stats/gender/web/welcome1.htm. The Database helps monitor the situation of women and men in Europe, North America, CIS and Israel.

The Statistical Division completed the selection and evaluation of a software tool that will provide a basis for the public dissemination of time series via the Web. An agreement was concluded with the producer of the system (Statistics Sweden). The implementation plan and calendar were agreed upon.

The 2003 issue of the publication "Trends in Europe and North America", aimed at a broad readership, was released as well as the 50th Anniversary Book on the History of the Conference. Furthermore, the Division provides on a regular basis selected statistics from various areas in the form of tables and charts to the new "UNECE Weekly".

Major challenges for 2004

Using the new platform for dissemination on the Web, key macro-economic reference series for UNECE countries from the Division's macro-economic database will be made publicly available and regularly updated. The focus will be on coherent time series for CIS, East and Central European countries.

An update and completion strategy for the Gender Statistics Database will be implemented, aiming at obtaining regular updates without overburdening national statistical offices. The coverage of the Database will be expanded in response to emerging issues, especially on ICT and entrepreneurship.

The three dimensions of sustainable development and the Millennium Development Goals will be integrated into the work of the Division, both concerning conceptual specification of indicators from the official statistics point of view, and with respect to data collection and database activities so as to support work of other UNECE divisions. This work will be carried out in close coordination with other international organizations within and outside the United Nations, so as to avoid duplication.

In view of the need expressed at the 51st Conference of European Statisticians to advance the adoption of the recommendation for the 2010 round of population censuses in the UNECE region to 2006, work has to be accelerated. 2004 will concentrate on ascertaining which parts of the 2000 recommendations need revising, and how they should be revised. One area that has already been identified is families and households.

The 51st Conference decided to launch under its auspices an experimental project on measuring the activities of multinational enterprises through a coordinated effort of countries and international organizations that volunteer to take part. The year 2004 will have to start with implementation, based on terms of reference and an organizational structure decided by the Bureau.

The Integrated Presentation of International Statistical Work in the UNECE Region, the key tool for and a major output of the coordinating function of the Conference, is now available as a publicly accessible database in a pilot version. The updating methods and periodicity have to be reconsidered and suitable technical means developed and implemented to allow all partner organizations to update their information directly. As a consequence, it will be possible to reduce the need for paper versions.