e-Learning course: Increasing engagement around data and Statistics–identifying and responding to user needs ,12 August – 13 September 2024

Identifying and responding to the needs of users for data and statistics is at the heart of the mission of National Statistical Offices (NSOs) and national statistical systems. NSOs already undertake many activities interacting with different users such as preparing press releases to aid journalists and communicate with the public at large and organizing launch events/workshops to disseminate important results from surveys and censuses. In general, the NSO interacts with users towards the tail end of the statistical production process when the data is disseminated. There is an opportunity for national statistical offices to further improve their collaboration with users by engaging more systematically throughout the statistical production process. User engagement is the process of conducting a dialogue with users of official statistics to understand their needs and improve the products, services and operation of a statistical organization accordingly.

In this course participants learned what user engagement was and how to identify users (including new and potential ones). Other topics that was covered include tools for engaging users, developing user engagement strategies and how to tailor different outputs to different users

Regional Training Workshop For Enhancing Statistical Leadership For Heads Of National Statistical Offices (NSOs) In Asia And The Pacific, 02 to 06 September 2024, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia

This training provided NSO heads with leadership skills to improve their effectiveness through greater awareness of their strengths and weaknesses and the challenges they face both internally within their organization and externally within the larger environment they are engaging with. Often, NSO heads rarely have the opportunity to receive extensive feedback from staff and stakeholders outside. It is necessary to have to open opportunity and understanding to build a comprehensive plan for driving success within the NSO and the NSS, and by extension the data ecosystem. Each individual has his/her own leadership style. Nurturing and developing these styles and skills with keen understanding and awareness of the challenges surrounding them significantly improves their positive self-engagement, collaboration, and contribution to the field they are engaged in. Leadership can be nurtured and developed if it is enabled to flourish in each individual using best practices built around: 

(1) assessment tools to help leaders look within and examine their identity, leadership skills and challenges and set developmental goals; 

(2) challenge-oriented, experiential, team-based activities that leverage their own experiences in co-creating solutions to enhance leadership skills; and 

(3) support through a peer learning and mentoring model that enable leaders to share their challenges, utilize innovation techniques and chart a course for greater effectiveness. Self-knowledge is an important key to effective leadership...here

Regional Training on Crime Statistics from a Gender Perspective, 03 to 06 September 2024 , Chiba, Japan

In 2022, nearly 18,600 women and girls were killed by their intimate partner or other family members in Asia and the Pacific, implying more than 50 were killed every day1. The figure highlights the most extreme manifestation of Gender-based Violence (GBV), which requires the systematic collection, analysis, and dissemination of high-quality and timely data to design effective responses, such as crime prevention policies. 

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) facilitate the collection of such data through the targets of SDG 5 (gender equality) and SDG 16 (peace, justice and strong institutions). Achieving the crimegender related SDG targets would significantly contribute towards mainstreaming a gender perspective into crime prevention policies and criminal justice responses to address all forms of GBV.  

While SDG data availability has improved across the region since 2017, data gaps continue to be prominent because of limited technical capacity to collect, analyze or disseminate data; lack of prioritization, resources, and investment; and limited interagency cooperation.    

This in-person regional training was jointly organized by SIAP, UNODC-KOSTAT CoE and United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women) Centre of Excellence for Gender Equality (UN Women CoE). 

Regional Workshop on an Accounting Approach to Climate Change and Biodiversity for Central Asia and the Caucasus, 09 to 12 September 2024, Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan

The United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD) and the United Nations Statistical Institute for Asia and the Pacific (UNSIAP), with the support of the Office of the Director-General for Policy Planning on Statistical Policy, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications of the Government of Japan, and in collaboration with the National Statistical Committee of the Kyrgyz Republic are organizing the Regional Workshop on Accounting Approach to Climate Change and Biodiversity for Central Asia and the Caucasus. The workshop was held in Bishkek, Kyrgyz Republic, from 9 to 12 September 2024. The workshop was be conducted in English, with Russian interpretation...here

Training Workshop on Quality of Statistics for Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for the Asia-Pacific Region, 23 to 25 September 2024,  Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia

Quality data are vital for enabling governments, international organizations, civil society, private sector and the general public to make informed decisions and to ensure the accountability of representative bodies. Effective planning, follow-up and review of the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development requires the collection, processing, analysis and dissemination of an unprecedented amount of data and statistics at local, national, regional and global levels and by multiple stakeholders. 

Achieving and maintaining public trust in official statistics requires that those statistics are produced in an objective, transparent and professionally independent manner. The statistical quality framework and quality review processes help promoting data quality. The United Nations Statistical Commission based on these considerations and other important principles established a set of Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics in 1994. These principles were adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2014. Many countries around the world have established a national code of practice or a national quality assurance framework for official statistics (NQAF) to capture those principles and best practices, and to safeguard public trust. In 2019, the United Nations Statistical Commission (UNSC) adopted the United Nations National Quality Assurance Frameworks Manual for Official Statistics (Manual) that has been developed by the Expert Group on National Quality Assurance Frameworks.

Regional Workshop on Consumer Price Index (CPI) and Prices Statistics, 30 September to 04 October 2024, Nadi, Fiji

Consumer price indexes (CPI) measure changes over time in the general level of prices of goods and services that households acquire (use or pay for) for the purpose of consumption. In many countries, they were originally introduced to provide a measure of the changes in the living costs faced by workers, so that wage increases could be related to changing levels of prices. However, over the years, CPIs have widened their scope and now are widely used as a macroeconomic indicator of inflation, as a tool by governments and central banksfor monetary policy and for monitoring price stability, and as deflators in the national accounts. With the globalization of trade and production and the liberalization of the markets, national governments, central banks, and international organizations place great importance on the quality and accuracy of national CPIs, and their international comparability.

e-Learning : Compiling climate change indicators: an accounting approach, 30 September to 08 November 2024

Climate change is one of the most pressing issues of our time. Its impacts on well-being are far reaching, including impacts on health and the economy. Humans have contributed to climate change largely through economic activities which are intrinsically linked to climate change. Our supply and use of energy for example has led to increased emissions of greenhouse gases which have resulted in global warming. A better understanding of the relationship between the economy and climate change through the compilation of relevant indicators is key to mitigating and adapting to climate change. This course will focus on climate change indicators that can be compiled from environmental economic accounts. After a brief overview of climate change and, relevant polices and multilateral agreements, participants will learn how to compile various indicators that inform climate change. The focus of the course is on better understanding the relationship between climate change and economic activity. And the statistical framework that provides the concepts, definitions, and methodology for measuring this relationship is the System of Environmental Economic Accounting. Participants will learn about physical supply and use tables for energy and air emissions, and indicators that can be compiled from these accounts. Other topics to be discussed include transaction accounts which can be used to derived expenditure type indicators such those on taxes on energy and pollution...here

e-Learning : Disability Statistics for Tracking Inclusive and Sustainable Development, 30 September to 08 November 2024

According to the World Health Organization , in 2021 more than 700 million people in Asia and the Pacific lived with some form of disability, which accounted for 16 per cent of the population. Persons with disabilities encounter social and economic barriers and bias in all aspects of life. Disability statistics enable tracking socioeconomic indicators related to persons with disabilities, therefore understanding better their needs to participate in society on an equal basis and identifying policy gaps to ensure disability-inclusive development. 

Within the framework of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, disability inclusion in the development process has been increasingly crucial, necessitating the need to improve disability disaggregated data to monitor disability-related Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) indicators. At a regional level, the Incheon Strategy to ‘Make the Right Real’ for Persons with Disabilities in Asia and the Pacific, the regional development goal to promote disability inclusion, reinforces the importance of disability-disaggregated data to measure progress against its targets and indicators. Disability data as a critical instrument to advance disability-inclusive development was reaffirmed by the adoption of the Jakarta Declaration on the Asian and Pacific Decade of Persons with Disabilities, 2023–2032. Underscoring the continued implementation of the Incheon Strategy, the Jakarta Declaration urges regional stakeholders to take measures to close disability data gaps and strengthen statistical capacities...here

SIAP E-learning System
 

SIAP offers a range of e-learning courses across the domains of social, environment and economic statistics; data science; and statistical principles and methodologies. These courses are facilitated and supported by an expert in the field to the participants through regular communication in discussion box and through webinar(s) during the period of course delivery. A certificate is issued to successful participants completing the course after passing the prescribed examination.