Major achievements in 2005
UNECE is one of the custodian organizations of the Fundamental Principles
of Official Statistics (adopted by UNECE in 1992). These principles are
basic rules for all official statistics, whatever the subject area. They
include such items as impartiality, professional independence for producers
of official statistics, equality of access to results for all users, transparency
of sources and methods, and confidentiality of information about individuals.
The UNECE took an initiative in 2003 to propose a set of similar principles
for international statistical activities. In September 2005, all international
organizations active in statistics agreed on such a set of principles,
and each organization is asked by UN Headquarters to subscribe to and
implement them.
UNECE provided assistance and advice for implementing the 1992 fundamental
principles to The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Georgia, and
Republic of Moldova through revised statistical legislation and, concerning
specific institutional issues, also to Albania and to Serbia and Montenegro.
UNECE was also invited to contribute to a seminar organized by Eurostat
for all CIS countries on institutional issues of official statistics.
Public access was extended to additional macroeconomic data, and to socio-economic
indicators contained in the gender database, and the user friendliness
of the interface was further improved. The improvements to the interface
will also enable the UNECE secretariat to know more about who the users of
the database are and whether their needs have been satisfied, and this monitoring
function will be used for further evaluation of the online database.
The
methodological work towards new or revised standards and guidelines continued
under the auspices of the Conference of European Statisticians (CES).
A priority area of work was the preparation of the recommendations for
the 2010 round of population and housing censuses, to be adopted in 2006.
Most meetings held in the various subject areas were organized as joint
meetings with other organizations. An important new activity is a joint meeting
with Eurostat and OECD for directors of social statistics in national statistical
offices, which will, in addition to other functions, serve as a steering group
for the various activities of UNECE in selected areas of demographic and social
statistics. Furthermore, a second round of reviewing the practices of countries
to measure the non-observed economy was launched.
Technical cooperation in statistics was provided to the Balkans and the CIS
countries. The partnership with Eurostat continued in South-Eastern Europe,
with the global assessment of the statistical system of Albania, including
recommendations for short- and medium-term improvements. Bilateral technical
cooperation was also provided to the Republic of Moldova and Ukraine
on the measurement of the non-observed economy, to the Russian Federation on
international migration statistics, and to Georgia on population statistics.
Multilateral technical cooperation took the form of seminars and training
workshops, for example on MDG-related health statistics to CIS countries
and, in cooperation with the Interstate Statistical Committee of the CIS
and the Federal Service of State Statistics of the Russian Federation, on
the compilation of industrial production indices. The International Conference
on Strengthening Sub-regional Cooperation in Central Asia held in Astana in
May 2005 decided to set up a project working group on statistics; the main
areas of cooperation as from 2006 will be population censuses, health statistics,
and statistics on the non-observed economy. In addition, UNECE was asked to
join a cooperative undertaking by various international organizations (European
Commission, Council of Europe, UN Headquarters) to advise UNMIK (United Nations
Mission in Kosovo) on the preparation of a population census in Kosovo, and
to monitor the various stages of this census. The World Bank, USAID and UNECE
organized a workshop on gender statistics for Central Asian countries.
After in-depth discussion of improved data reporting and measurement
of sustainable development, two topics that require the attention of top
management, the Conference set up groups to pursue work in these areas.
The Conference discussed a draft of a new standard: Core Principles on
Managing Confidentiality and Access to Microdata (planned to be adopted
in June 2006). It also reviewed the issues and problems in migration
statistics and the need for harmonizing the terminology and definitions
across countries and international organizations in this area.
Major challenges for 2006
The Conference of European Statisticians will be invited to adopt in
2006 the Recommendation for the 2010 Round of Population and Housing
Censuses, developed jointly by UNECE and Eurostat.
UNECE will contribute substantially to a revision of the system
of national accounts SNA – a key statistical standard at global level. This will
be discussed at the UNECE meeting on national accounts in April 2006.
The Conference will discuss the assessment of the present capacity
of UNECE countries to produce data for the MDG indicators as
part of their regular production of official statistics at
national level, and draw some conclusions for further work in this area.
The main new element of technical cooperation in 2006 will
be to start implementing the first development account project,
in cooperation with ESCAP, on statistical capacity building
in Central Asia. This activity will be carried out within the framework
of SPECA.