SANTIAGO, Chile, CMC – The Bahamas and Grenada have been elected to the executive committee of the Statistical Conference of the Americas as the 12th meeting of Statistical Conference of the Americas ended here with countries being urged to generate and consolidate statistics and indicators on the environment, climate change, and disasters.
Delegates to the three-day meeting said that the need to generate and consolidate at a national and regional level environmental, climate change, and disaster statistics and indicators will provide reliable and timely metrics for decision-making and for moving forward on the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
The intergovernmental meeting, the main forum for discussing the development of statistics in the region, brought together authorities from National Statistical Offices in Latin American and Caribbean countries and representatives of United Nations System agencies, funds and programs, academia, and civil society.
The Dominican Republic has taken over as the Chair of the Statistical Conference of the Americas for the 2024-2025 biennium, with the other executive members being from Argentina, the Bahamas, Grenada, Mexico, Peru, Spain, and Uruguay.
General Director of the National Statistics Office of the Dominican Republic, Miosotis Rivas, said that “in the complex context in which we live and with the possibility of making progress at the high speed enabled by new technologies, we must transform ourselves into a community that can fuel better development of our region through data and statistics.
“We are facing economic and social challenges of great impact in the region, with aggravating factors such as the unexpected effects of climate change.”
In that context, National Statistical Offices must provide the raw material, statistics, as essential and indispensable instruments for designing and monitoring the public policies that “will prompt an acceleration in the achievement of change for our people.”
The Director-General of the National Institute of Statistics and Censuses (INDEC), Marco Lavagna of Argentina, reiterated the urgency of strengthening the region’s statistical community, which would enable putting the Latin American and Caribbean perspective on the global agenda.
The Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), José Manuel Salazar-Xirinachs, and the Director of its Statistics Division, Rolando Ocampo, welcomed the agreements reached and the progress made during the three-day event.
“We have a lot of work ahead and much to contribute for the sake of our region. We are a very active and collaborative community. ECLAC is proud to serve as Technical Secretariat of the Statistical Conference of the Americas.”
At the meeting, the participating countries approved a resolution that, among other points, stresses the importance of platforms for the dissemination of official statistical and geospatial information, which use innovative digital technology solutions that enable interoperability of available data assets for making such information available in a more timely manner and to a broader group of users.
It further acknowledges the role of national statistical offices as critical stakeholders in leading and coordinating the dissemination of statistical and geospatial information. It invites countries to move forward in consolidating their platforms for disseminating statistical and geospatial information using interoperable data ecosystems that facilitate their implementation.
The resolution recognizes the usefulness of small area estimation methodologies as a tool for producing official statistics disaggregated by interest group and geographic area, which allows adequate monitoring of the SDGs and feeds a base of reliable information for the design and evaluation of public policy.
During the Conference, authorities also approved a statement that stressed the need to have sustainable access to data held by the private sector to produce official statistics.
The statement on the use of data held by the private sector for official statistics warns about the increased challenges associated with collecting primary data from individuals, households, businesses, and institutions. It emphasizes the potential of personal sector data in the more timely and efficient production of official statistics.
It urges regional countries to support national statistical offices in their key coordinating role in access to data held by the private sector for official statistical purposes, considering the different levels of progress of the respective national statistical systems.
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