Secretary-General of OECD, Chairman of the CES, Heads of statistical offices,
ladies and gentlemen!
It is my great pleasure to address you at this important moment when you
celebrate the 50th anniversary of the CES (Conference of European Statisticians).
It was in 1953 at an ad hoc Regional meeting of European Statisticians, when
the conference of European Statisticians was created and became a "Principal
Subsidiary Body of the ECE".
For almost 40 years, that is throughout the whole period of the cold war,
the CES served as "a bridge between statistical offices from market and
non-market economies". Statisticians regularly met in Geneva under the
umbrella of the CES to discuss and approve statistical standards, exchange
data and improve international capability. As mentioned in Fellegi and Franchet's
paper when analysing important developments in the world that have had a profound
impact on the role of the CES after the fall of the iron curtain, the Conference
is not anymore a "bridge" but a "forum" for knowledge
and experience, and transfer among statistical offices in countries at different
levels of statistical development.
To narrow a statistical divide is and for some time will remain one of the
functions of the Conference. Yesterday in your discussion of the future of
the CES you focused on 1. the importance of raising the profile of CES, 2.
need to respond to new challenges, 3.need for flexibility (Korolev's paper),
4. impact of the EU on the CES etc. You discussed the same issues which are
discussed in the ECE as a part of the debate of the "Strengthening the
Organisation".
I would like to congratulate the CES to take this initiative and encourage
you to make the decisions that will assist to better respond to new arising
challenges. We all agree that the challenges in the world, but particularly
in this region in the last decade are enormous; the transition from CSE to
market economies in 27 member states, deepening the European Integration under
the EU umbrella and on-going EU-enlargement which is going to have an impact
on existing EU member states, acceding and also non-acceding countries; the
growing globalisation with its positive and also negative impacts on society;
the new ICT as a tool for the development of information society; growing
understanding of the need for sustainable development, etc. To these new challenges
all key actors, governments, businesses, NGO's, international organisations
have to respond adequately. This is certainly an important task for the UNECE
and the CES.
Therefore the UNECE started a debate on the "Strengthening the UNECE"
as a part of the UN Secretary General's initiative to reform the UN. We discuss
issues like raising the policy profile of UNECE, including social policy issues
into ECE mandate, country groupings approach, more focus on the implementation
and monitoring and reviewing of "hard" and "soft" law
(like norms, standards, conventions, best practices, guidelines, etc). The
reform if adopted will need the Conference's support in many fields like,
the need for new measurements, sets of new indicators of good governance,
knowledge based economy etc, new data collection, better quality of statistical
data, new statistical techniques etc.
Therefore I welcome that in Item 3 in matters arising from the May 2002
Annual Session of the Economic Commission for Europe, it is proposed that
the Bureau of the Conference and the Conference itself should continue to
work actively towards contributing positively to strengthening the ECE as
an organisation.
One innovative element of your work could be possibly implemented in the
work of some other PSB of the ECE as a part of the reform: it is Integrated
Presentation of the Programmes of Work of the international agencies active
in the ECE and OECD areas. To my understanding this is an efficient tool to
avoid duplications, to improve the cooperation among relevant agencies and
to increase synergy. I would appreciate if you could share your experience
with other PSBs not only in Integrated Presentation of the Programmes of Work
but also in organising expert meetings jointly by two or more agencies such
as with Eurostat, OECD and other international organisations. Possible conversion
of the Integrated Presentation into a database product could be next progress
worth to be initiated.
Many of you referred to the mandate of the Conference and its objectives
as confirmed by the Conference at its 1991 plenary session, like: to improve
national statistics, to promote closer co-ordination of the statistical activities
but also to respond to emerging needs arising out of transition, integration
and other processes of cooperation both within the ECE region and between
the ECE region and other regions.
As I said earlier the CES should continue to have a role in assisting statistical
offices to close the statistical divide which still exists among the members
and thus to contribute to the integration of this region. So that the role
of the Conference is ensuring that the statistical practices of the most advanced
members do not drift apart from those of other member countries of the ECE.
The secretariat of the ECE is committed to provide technical assistance
to statistical offices if required and with the involvement of the UNDP. It
is important that we avoid duplications and improve coordination with the
Eurostat, although the ECE's involvement is very limited. The reform of the
ECE's technical assistance should allow better responding to member states
needs, be more demand-driven and action-orientated. The CES as an international
body considers its role in the region but also its contribution to out of
regional development of statistics. Its contribution to other regions and
its contribution to the Statistical Commission of the UN should be considered.
The mandate of the CES also assumes to respond to regional and global processes.
Therefore it should be considered how the implementation of the Millennium
Declaration, Monterrey Consensus, expected Johannesburg declaration could
be integrated into the CES programme of work.
The Conference should also find means that permit to further contribute
to cross-sectoral activities in the ECE, to deal with economic and social
implications of population ageing and should clarify its contribution to the
information society which as we believe could help to develop a more democratic
and just world. In order that the misuse of information is avoided which would
otherwise represent a threat to UN values, it is needed to improve quality
and reliability of information, to improve statistical knowledge and ICT skills
in society, to provide new information which was not needed before, to guarantee
free access to information, etc. To accomplish this task it requires combined
efforts of governments including their commitment to increased transparency
and accountability, national statistical offices, business sector, research
institutes and international organisations.
The CES can contribute significantly to the democratic debate, through better
dissemination of knowledge to the civil society and its increasing use in
policy decisions. In this process the "official statistics" will
face increased competition in various fields of its activities: in conducting
statistical surveys, in data collection, in data dissemination, in statistical
analysis, etc from business research, different agencies, etc. The competition
will raise many problems such as quality of data, divergence of data, etc.
But in general, competition and some division of labour should be welcomed
as a way of improvement of work of statistical offices and relevant international
organisations and as a contribution to a more knowledgeable society.
Finally, I would like to thank the OECD for hosting the 50th CES in the
OECD premises; Eurostat for facilitating the participation of representatives
of some transition members in the CES; the chairman of CES and the Bureau
and the Executive heads of the statistical offices for your commitment to
the work of the CES and also the ECE Statistical Division for servicing the
Conference. I would like to congratulate the CES and wish the Conference another
50 years of success.
Thank you in advance.