2005 UNSD Calendar of Events

Expert Group Meeting on Millennium Development Goals Indicators
New York, 25-27 January 2005

The objectives of this meeting are:
- Review data and analysis to be used as inputs for the preparation of the Secretary-General's comprehensive report on the Implementation of the Millennium Declaration (March 2005) and for the Internet publication (June 2005);
- Review the final draft of the 2005 publication on MDG trends, prepared by the Editorial Advisory Group;
- Consider plans for further work in 2005

Meeting of the Technical Subgroup of the Expert Group on International Economic and Social Classifications
New York, 14-18 February 2005

The main focus of this meeting will be the on the review of the 2004 questionnaire on the revision of the International Standard Industrial Classification of All Economic Activities (ISIC), which has provided a complete detailed draft proposal of the revised classification. The Technical Subgroup will discuss and produce a complete revised draft ISIC structure, taking into account the proposals from the replies to the above mentioned questionnaire, which will be submitted for approval to the Expert Group on International Economic and Social Classifications at its next meeting in June 2005.

For more information, please refer to the website at:
http://unstats.un.org/unsd/class/intercop/techsubgroup/05-02/tsg0502-2.htm

Workshop on Environmental Statistics
Dakar, Senegal, 28 February to 4 March 2005

As part of the UNSD/ECOWAS project "Strengthening Statistical capacity-building in support of the Millenium Development Goals in the region of the Economic Community of West African States", a Workshop on Environment Statistics will be held in Dakar, Senegal from 28 February to 4 March 2005. The Workshop is being organized by UNSD, in collaboration with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) and ECOWAS. The main objectives of the workshop are to familiarize participants with concepts and methods of environmental statistics and indicators; provide a forum for exchange of information on the status of national environment statistics; and establish a network of environmental statisticians in the region. The workshop will have particular focus on data collection of water, waste, land and air statistics. There will be two participants from each country in the ECOWAS region, one from the national statistical office and the other from the environmental ministry or equivalent institution.

Workshop on Energy Statistics with Special Focus on Oil Statistics
Abuja, Nigeria 15-17 March 2005

UNSD, in collaboration with International Energy Agency (IEA), the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Secretariat, is organising a workshop on energy statistics with a special focus on oil statistics. The workshop will be hosted by the ECOWAS Secretariat and will be held in Abuja, Nigeria from 15 to 17 March 2005 within the framework of the project on Strengthening Statistical Capacity-Building in Support of the Millennium Development Goals in the region of (ECOWAS). The objective of the workshop is to build and increase capacities to improve basic energy statistics and indicators and also provide a forum for exchanges of information on the status of the national energy statistics and establish a network of energy statisticians in selected ESOWAS countries.

Workshop on International Economic and Social Classifications
Montevideo, Uruguay, 14-18 March 2005

This Workshop is jointly organized by the United Nations Department of Economics and Social Affairs' Statistics Division (UNSD) and the Statistics and Economic Projections Division of the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (UNECLAC).

The Workshop will focus on the current revision processes of economic and social classifications and will in particular:

For more information, please refer to the website at:
http://unstats.un.org/unsd/class/intercop/training/uruguay/uruguay-2.htm

Work Session on Water Statistics
Vienna, Austria, 20-22 June 2005

A Work Session on Water Statistics, organized by the Intersecretariat Working Group on Environment Statistics (UNSD, UNECE, UNEP, OECD and Eurostat) will be held in Vienna on 20-22 June 2005, hosted by the Austrian Environment Agency.

The specific objectives of the Work Session are (a) to review information needed for water policy and how this demand is met by international water statistics and integrated environmental-economic accounting for water resources; and (b) to provide a forum for invited countries and international organisations to exchange experiences on best practices in the collection, organization and analysis of water statistics.

For further information, please see: http://www.umweltbundesamt.at/iwg-env

Meeting of the Expert Group on International Economic and Social Classifications
New York, 20-23 June 2005

The Expert Group, bringing together custodians and users of major international economic and social classifications, will review progress on the development of international classifications and provide guidance for future work to improve the relevance of the classifications and improve harmonization between the members of the Family of International Classifications. The Expert Group will in particular review the International Standard Industrial Classification of All Economic Activities (ISIC), the Central product Classification (CPC) and the International Standard Classification of Occupations (ISCO) and is expected to approve the draft classifications that have been prepared.

For more information, please refer to the website at:
http://unstats.un.org/unsd/class/intercop/expertgroup/2005/ac103-2.htm

Eighth United Nations Regional Cartographic Conference for the Americas
New York, 27 June to 1 July 2005

The Eighth United Nations Regional Cartographic Conference for the Americas will be held at the United Nations Headquarters in New York, 27 June to 1 July, 2005, in accordance with the Economic and Social Council decision 2001/232 of 19 July 2001. This conference is convened every four years.

The primary objective of the Conference is to provide a regional forum where government officials, planners, scientists and experts from the Americas and other regions could meet to address the common needs, problems and experiences in the field of surveying and mapping, cartography, hydrography, remote sensing, land and geographical information systems, including educational and training aspects, scientific and technological requirements, implementation issues and benefits.

Expert Group Meeting on Poverty Statistics
New York, 28-30 June 2005

An Expert Group Meeting on the forthcoming Handbook on Poverty Statistics will be held in New York from 28 to 30 June 2005 . The purpose of the meeting is to review the draft manuscript of the Handbook, covering issues such as, current poverty measurement practices, statistical tools and estimation methods for poverty measures based on household surveys, statistical issues in measuring poverty from non-survey sources, etc). Authors and reviewers of the Chapters will participate in the meeting, as well as national poverty experts from a number of developing countries.

For more information, please refer to the website at: http://unstats.un.org/unsd/methods/poverty/default.htm

Meeting of the Advisory Expert Group on National Accounts
Bangkok, 18-22 July 2005

The Third meeting of the Advisory Expert Group (AEG), comprising of 20 country experts in national accounts from all regions of the world, will be hosted by UNESCAP. The AEG will discuss a broad range of issues and make recommendations for their treatment in the update of the 1993 System of National Accounts (SNA). The review of these issues is harmonized with the ongoing updating and revision processes of the Balance of Payments Manual and the Government Finance Statistics Manual. The issues on the agenda of the meeting include Financial services, Government owned assets, Cost of capital services, Non-performing loans, Tax revenues, Granting of guarantees, Obsolescence and depreciation, Financial assets, Public/private/government sectors delineation, Goods sent abroad for processing, Migrants' transfers, Databases, Land improvements, Research and Development, among others. The documents of the meeting are available at http://unstats.un.org/unsd/nationalaccount/aeg.htm.

International Workshop on Economic Census
Beijing , China , 26-29 July 2005

The international workshop is jointly organized by UNSD and National Bureau of Statistics of China (NBS). This workshop will provide a forum for international experts and country representatives to share views and experiences on economic census and how to build an integrated economic statistics programme using multiple data sources.

The main objective of this workshop is to evaluate the potential of economic census in the context of efforts to compile high quality and policy relevant economic statistics. It is expected that the recommendations of the workshop will be integrated in the UNSD strategy paper on compilation of basic economic statistics planned for submission to the 37th Session of the United Nations Statistical Commission in 2006.

This workshop will undertake an in-depth review of China’s experience in conducting its first economic census and participants will exchange country experiences in several key areas highly important to economic census such as constructing and maintaining a business register; coverage and content of economic census; data collection and processing. The complex subject of building an integrated economic statistics programme will be explored and one special session will be devoted for the discussion about the future directions of economic census.

For more information, please refer to the website at: http://unstats.un.org/unsd/newsletter/unsd_workshops/ws_eco_census.htm

United Nations Expert Group Meeting on the 2010 World Programme on Population and Housing Censuses
New York, 22-26 August 2005

This Expert Group Meeting is the first in a series of meetings planned to support the 2010 World Programme on Population and Housing Censuses. The Expert Group Meeting will focus on the review and update of the United Nations Principles and Recommendations for Population and Housing Censuses, Revision 1. The Expert Group Meeting will consider in detail the proposals that have been put forward for updating or revising the current set of principles and recommendations. Issues for discussion and deliberation will include:

The meeting will also seek proposals for the inclusion of guidelines related to census features that are not presented in the current version but that may need to be addressed and elaborated, such as combining census methodologies, comprehensive data dissemination, and layouts for international data collection.

For more information, please refer to the website at:
http://unstats.un.org/unsd/demographic/meetings/egm/CensusEGM05/default.htm

Expert Group on Distributive Trade Statistics
First Meeting: New York, 22-25 August 2005

The Expert Group on Distributive Trade Statistics (EG-DTS) is being organized by the United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD) in order to assist UNSD in the revision of the existing UN Statistical Commission’s recommendations on distributive trade statistics published in International Recommendations on Statistics of the Distributive Trades and Services (Statistical Papers, Series M, No. 57, United Nations, New York, 1975) and in updating the UNSD compilation advice contained in Organization and Conduct of Distributive-Trade Surveys (Statistical Papers, Series F, No. 19, United Nations, New York, 1977). EG-DTS is expected to:
   (a) provide an assessment of those recommendations and advice in view of the new realities in the distributive trade and current country practices in compilation of the relevant statistics,
   (b) contribute to drafting of the revised recommendations and suggest new approaches in data compilation including organization and conduct of distributive trade surveys, and
   (c) review a draft of the UN publication International Recommendations on Distributive Trade Statistics, which will contain the new recommendations, and to comment on a provisional draft Distributive Trade Statistics: Compilers Manual.
   The EG-DTS is expected to conduct two meetings – the first on 22-25 August 2005 and the second in mid 2007 (the exact dates are not set yet).

For more information, please refer to the website at: http://unstats.un.org/unsd/newsletter/unsd_workshops/distributive_trade.htm

Preliminary Meeting of the United Nations Committee on Environmental-Economic Accounting
New York, 29-31 August 2005

The United Nations Statistical Commission at its 36th Session in March 2005 endorsed the creation of the United Nations Committee on Environmental-Economic Accounting to mainstream environmental accounting and elevating it to the level of official statistics. It requested that the terms of reference of the Committee be prepared and submitted to the Bureau of the Commission for approval.
The preliminary meeting of the UN Committee will have the objectives of (a) developing the terms of reference of the UN Committee; (b) formulating its long-term objectives; (c) developing its programme of work; and (d) agree on its governance structure. Participants in the preliminary meeting will include representatives from countries as well as international organizations.

For more information, please refer to the website at:
http://unstats.un.org/unsd/envAccounting/ceeameetings.htm

Workshop on the Compilation of International Merchandise Trade Statistics
Abuja , 30 August – 2 September 2005

Joint UNSD/ECOWAS regional workshop on the Compilation of International Merchandise Trade Statistics (IMTS), August/September 2005, for ECOWAS member countries (plus Mauritania) will be held at the ECOWAS conference centre in Abuja. Customs officers and statisticians of the National Statistical Offices will be brought together to solve local problems in producing trade data. Experts from ECOWAS, UNSD, UNCTAD and FAO will lead the discussions which will focus on methodological issues, the use of ASYCUDA at the customs offices and the use EUROTRACE at the statistical offices.

For more information, please refer to the website at:
http://unstats.un.org/unsd/trade/WS Abuja/meeting_IMTS_trade.htm

Workshop on the Compilation of Statistics on International Trade in Services, Panama City, 13-16 September 2005

Joint UNSD/ECLAC regional workshop on Statistics of International Trade in Services, September 2005, will bring participants from Central Banks and National Statistical Offices of the ECLAC/CARICOM region together to share their experiences in the compilation of international trade in services and in the implementation of the Manual on Statistics of international trade in services (MSITS). Twenty countries will be represented (including Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, Chile, Colombia and Peru) and will be asked to present case studies on specific compilation issues. Resource persons from UNSD, ECLAC, OAS and WTO/OMT will be available to support the learning experience.

For more information, please refer to the website at:
http://unstats.un.org/unsd/tradeserv/meeting_service_trade.htm

Expert Group Meeting on the Industrial Statistics
New York, 19-23 September 2005

The Expert Group will (a) critically review the International Recommendations on
Industrial Statistics (Statistical Papers, Series M, No. 48, Rev. 1) and
Index Numbers of Industrial Production (Statistical Papers, Series F, No. 1;
(b) make proposals for updating these recommendations in view of the changes
in the global economic environment and new developments in various
statistical fields and economic accounting standards after the publication
of the 1993 System of National Accounts, 1993; (c) review the treatment
of statistical units (i.e. ancillary units, holding companies, special purpose
entities, conduits, trust funds/investment funds, etc.) as part of the current
work programme on the update the 1993 System of National Accounts; and
(d) provide inputs in the statistical review of the international programme
on industrial statistics undertaken under the mandate of the Statistical Commission.

For more information, please refer to the website at:
http://unstats.un.org/unsd/industry/meetings/eg2005

Economic Statistics Workshop for Caribbean Countries
Washington DC, 19-30 September 2005

UNSD is collaborating with the U.S. Census Bureau to provide specialized
training to CARICOM member countries by jointly organizing a workshop on
economic statistics in Washington D.C. from 19 to 30 September 2005. The
workshop is designed for planners, statisticians, and data processors that
are responsible for producing economic statistics which measure growth and
development. The workshop will consist of a number of lectures, group
discussions, and exercises where participants will be presented with the
various facets of an economic census or survey. Topics which will be
covered include planning and administration, content and data collection
operations.

Meeting of the Technical Subgroup of the Expert Group on International and Social Classifications
New York, 24-28 October 2005

The Technical Subgroup will review the replies to the 2005 questionnaire on the revision of the Central Product Classification (CPC) and produce a final draft of the revised classification. Based on proposals and comments received, the discussion will focus on services and agricultural products. After endorsement by the Expert Group, this draft will be submitted to the UN Statistical Commission for approval.

Workshop on Data and Indicators to Monitor Progress towards the Millennium Development Goals
Praia, Cape Verde, 5-9 December 2005

The purpose of this workshop organized by the United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD) is to improve national statisticians’ understanding of the MDGs and strengthen national capacity to produce data, indicators and analysis for monitoring the MDGs at the national level. Specific objectives of the meeting are to: (a) achieve a common understanding of internationally recognized concepts and definitions for the statistical indicators of the MDGs; (b) share country experiences in adapting the international list of goals, targets and indicators for national use; (c) elaborate recommendations to strengthen statistics at the national and international levels to meet the ongoing data needs of countries to plan, implement and monitor the MDGs. strengthening capacity to produce and disseminate the MDG indicators and their implications in 15 countries from the ECOWAS region.