The fourth regional course on Poverty Measurements had been held from 6 to 16 May 2008 at the Education and Training Center of BPS, Statistics Indonesia in southern Jakarta. The course, the fourth one in a series of statistical training on poverty measurements, was organized jointly by SIAP and BPS. All 21 participants from 18 Asia and Pacific countries successfully completed the training programme.

The participates were from Bangladesh, Bhutan, Fiji, India, Indonesia, Islamic Republic of Iran, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Mongolia, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Samoa, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Tonga, and Vietnam.

The topics taken up during the training are concepts and definitions of poverty and its measurements including poverty lines, poverty incidence, poverty gap and inequality measures, MDGs, statistical tools and estimation methods, statistical software such as Stata. The latest edition of the Handbook on Poverty Statistics was used.

The lecturers of the training were Dr. Jose Ramon G. Albert, SIAP consultant and the course director for this training, and experts from BPS, particularly Dr. Kecuk Suhariyanto. Pre- and Post- tests were arranged to examine the effectiveness of the training. The results of the tests as well as feedback from the participants indicated that many of the participants improved their knowledge and skills on poverty measurements during this ten-day training course.

As a component of the training, participants also conducted project work during the training to exercise their achievements by analyzing their country poverty and inequality situation, using their official data. Six groups were organized for that and presentation and discussion sessions were held toward the end of the course. All the groups successfully presented their works using their just learned STATA software. This shows another evidence of the success of the training.

Beside the formal programme, BPS arranged a field study trip and other short visits for participants to know more about Indonesia to both inside and outside Jakarta even in the weekend. All the arrangements and services provided by the staff of BPS through the course duration were highly appreciated by the participants.

The closing ceremony was held at the BPS Head Quarter in central Jakarta on 16 May. The Director General of BPS, Dr. Rusman Heriawan and all his deputy attended the ceremony.  From SIAP, Deputy Director, Mr. Shuichi Watanabe joined them.