The State of Qatar will participate in the 47th Session of the United Nations Statistical Commission (UNSD), to be held at United Nations Headquarters in New York from 8 – 11 March 2016. The Qatari delegation will be headed by HE Dr. Saleh bin Mohammed Al-Nabit, Minister of Development Planning and Statistics.
Qatar’s participation in this session is of special importance, being elected last year as representative of the Asian Group, which will enable it to obtain membership of the United Nations Statistical Commission, for the period of 2016-2019. This membership will enable Qatar to involve in the decision-making process related to the measurement of economic, social and environmental phenomena in the Arab region, the update of statistical systems and methodologies, the formulation of effective statistical policies that take into account national and international needs related to the sustainable development process, as well as assisting Arab countries to benefit from the technical support provided by the United Nations and its organizations.
This session’s agenda covers a number of important issues relating to the role of statistical data in the development process, the development of methodologies and data sources, the methods of publishing statistical data and making them available to users in a timely manner; including the adoption of the framework of 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, whose goals and objectives have been adopted by world leaders in September 2015. The session will also discuss the Transformative Agenda for Official Statistics in order to enable countries to develop and update the statistical process as a prelude to support the agenda of the aforesaid development. In addition, the agenda covers significant topics relating to the national accounts system; prices statistics; environmental-economic accounting; international statistical classifications; international trade statistics; climate statistics; disability statistics; information and communications technology statistics; and big data for official statistics; in addition to other topics.
On the sidelines of the session, His Excellency Dr. Saleh bin Mohammed Al-Nabit, Minister of Development Planning and Statistics, is to meet many officials in the United Nations organizations, the World Bank, Organization of the Islamic Conference, as well as regional and Arab organizations. His Excellency will also meet representatives of the developed countries in order to consult on the latest developments on updating statistical process, exchange of experiences and learning from successful lessons. In the Qatari mission office, he will meet the manager of the UN Transformative Agenda for Official Statistics Project to discuss the request submitted by the UN Statistics Division to the State of Qatar to join the UN Transformative Agenda for Official Statistics Project and considering it a leading country in this area.
