Advisory Group on Information Technology

In response to feedbacks from national statistical offices, the United Nations Statistics Division is in the process of establishing an Advisory Group on the Application of Information Technology (IT) in National Statistical Offices. The Advisory Group will comprise of Chief Information Officers (CIO) of selected National Statistical Offices. Its role is to examine current practices, advise national statistical offices in choosing, designing, and implementing information systems for statistical activities, and to address strategic IT issues that would impact on the global statistical system. This group, operating largely on a virtual basis, will be a highly valuable reference body on IT applications for the global statistical community.

The first meeting of the group took place in New York on 26 and 27 May 2005 at the invitation of the United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD), in response to feedback from National Statistical Offices (NSO). The primary purpose of the meeting was to explore possible synergies among IT departments of national statistical offices, examine current practices and advise national statistical offices in choosing, designing and implementing information systems for statistical activities, as well as strategic IT issues that would impact in the global statistical system.

A variety of issues were discussed, namely UNSD’s IT technical cooperation programme; knowledge sharing among National Statistical Offices, including shareable and commercial IT applications and systems (PC-Axis, Blaise, CSPro, etc.); DevInfo as a tool for collecting indicator based data; SDMX as a tool for exchanging data between statistical agencies, its impact and implications of adoption of SDMX as an EDI tool; IT aspects of Geographic Information System (GIS).

For additional information and about joining this group please write to statistics@un.org