UN Secretary-General Calls World Leaders to Celebrate WSD
19 July 2010 -- As a follow up to the , Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon signed a
letter to Heads of State/Government bringing to their attention the General Assembly's decision to designate 20 October
2010 as World Statistics Day. “I am heartened by the sincere efforts made in many countries in recent years to strengthen
their statistical capacity, under the leadership of the national statistical office, in areas such as the population and
housing censuses and the monitoring of MDG progress”, the Secretary-General wrote. “I am also encouraged by the
announcements of many national statistical systems to celebrate the first World Statistics Day. I invite your Government,
as the primary producer, user and beneficiary of official statistics, to lend your full and timely support to these
efforts.” In the last paragraph, the Secretary-General makes a strong statement in support of statistical work: “Let us
make this historic World Statistics Day a success by acknowledging and celebrating the role of statistics in the social
and economic development of our societies and by dedicating further effort and resources to strengthening national
statistical capacity.”
