The 4th Forum on Arab Statistical Capacity Building and the Regional Meeting on “Measuring the Progress of Arab Societies” was held in Cairo, Egypt on 25 - 27 May 2009. The Forum and the Meeting were attended by the representatives of the National Statistical Organizations (NSOs) of the Arab Countries as well as representatives of some international organizations, namely, AITRS, IDB, MEDSTAT II, OECD PARIS21, UNSD, UNESCWA and World Bank. Dr. Sıdıka Başçı, Director of the Statistics and Information Department represented SESRIC during the Forum and made a presentation titled: “Exchange of Training Expertise among the Arab Countries and Developing NSDS”.

Within the framework of enhancing the statistical capacity building in the Arab region, the forum was organized by the Arab League and Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS) of Egypt with financial and technical support from PARIS21. Representatives of NSOs at various stages of “National Strategies for the Development of Statistics, (NSDS)” made presentations reflecting their experiences. The international organizations presented their views on how they can support the development of these strategies in terms of donors, technical support or training activities.

The last day was devoted to the Regional Meeting on “Measuring the Progress of Arab Societies”. It was a pre-meeting of 3rd OECD World Forum on Statistics, Knowledge and Policy which will be held on October 27-30, 2009 in Busan - South Korea.

During the forum, Dr. Başçı had the opportunity to discuss the future possibilities of cooperation with the representatives of the participating international organizations, especially in the area of training. Moreover, she exchanged views with the representatives of NSOs of the Arab Countries on various issues related to statistics.