ECE REGIONAL ADVISORY SERVICES

STATISTICS

 Background

UNECE technical assistance in the field of statistics funded from the Regular Programme of Technical Cooperation (RPTC) aims at providing senior government officials in the UNECE region with expertise of a broad nature in official statistics and especially capacity building for official statistics. The RPTC-related technical cooperation activities, implemented by the Regional Adviser on Statistics in cooperation with the Statistical Division, are demand-driven, results oriented and concentrated on countries with economies in transition of Eastern and Southeast Europe as well as the Caucasus and Central Asia. 

Capacity building for official statistics implies a series of interrelated activities, which build on each other. The activities cover economic, social, and environmental statistics and indicators, in order to facilitate the transition to the market economy, the monitoring of progress toward the achievement of Millennium Development Goals, and institutional and structural aspects of the statistical system.

The task of the Regional Adviser on Statistics is to promote the implementation of commonly agreed international statistical standards for use in national official statistics, so that policy makers and other users of statistical information can be provided with the relevant data they need, which are at the same time methodologically sound and internationally comparable. This task consists of bilateral meetings with national statistical offices on request of governments, organisation of sub-regional workshops and training courses for senior statistical officials and users of statistics.  

The Regional Adviser coordinates and ensures the compatibility of technical cooperation activities carried out by other professional staff of the Statistical Division, e.g. on population census, gender statistics, national accounts, and implementation of Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics.  He also acts as a rapporteur to the Economic Commission for Europe and the Conference of European Statisticians on technical cooperation carried out by the Statistical Division.

The Regional Adviser manages extra-budgetary resources allotted to technical cooperation in statistics and assists in raising or attracting funds to support technical co-operation activities.

To accomplish these tasks in an efficient and effective way, linkages have been established with the regular programme of work of UNECE subsidiary bodies, in particular the Conference of European Statisticians. Linkages are actively developed with other institutions and organisations active in the field of statistics in the region, such as the European Union, OECD, the World Bank, the Interstate Statistical Committee of the CIS, the UN Statistics Division in New York, UNFPA, UNDP and other international organisations.

Brief information about the objective, expected accomplishments, indicators of achievement and summary of outputs, related to ECE Regional Advisory Services on Statistics in 2008-2009 can be accessed here.

Main activities and achievements 

More detailed information on Regional Adviser's main directions of work, specific technical cooperation activities and their main results will be available soon. 

Links to main projects/activities  

Training Workshop on Population and Housing Censuses for SPECA countries (Baku, November 2006)

Training Workshop on Disability statistics for SPECA countries (Bishkek, December 2006)

Training Workshop on Census Questionnaire Design for SPECA countries (Dushanbe, March 2007)

UNECE Training Workshop on Non-Observed Economy for SPECA countries (Bishkek, April 2007)

Training Workshop on Census Technology for SPECA countries (Astana, June 2007)