SESRIC, in its capacity as the Secretariat of the OIC Statistical Commission (OIC-StatCom), organised the Follow-up Meeting of the 12^th Session of the OIC-StatCom on 28 February 2024 as a side event of the 55^th Session of the United Nations Statistical Commission in New York, USA. 36 delegates from 19 OIC member countries, as well as the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), CDC Foundation and GCC-STAT, attended the meeting.

The meeting commenced with opening remarks delivered by Dr. Atilla KARAMAN, Chief of Cabinet, on behalf of H.E. Zehra Zümrüt SELÇUK, Director General of SESRIC and continued with the remarks of Dr. Areef SULEMAN, Group Chief Economist of IsDB and H.E. Mr. Joseph TEDOU, Director General of the National Institute of Statistics (INS) of Cameroon and the Chairman of the 12^th Session of the OIC-StatCom.

SESRIC briefed the participants on the follow-up of the implementation of the resolutions adopted at the 12^th Session of the OIC-StatCom, which was organised in a hybrid format in Jeddah, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, in October 2023, and the preparations for the upcoming 13^th Session.

The participants discussed and agreed on the following issues:

• The composition of the Bureau Members of the upcoming 13^th Session of the OIC-StatCom, which reflects the geographical distribution of the three official groups of the OIC; namely, the African, the Arab, and the Asian groups as follows: Chair: Oman (OIC Arab Group); Vice-Chair: Senegal (OIC Africa Group); Vice-Chair: Azerbaijan (OIC Asia Group); Vice-Chair: Palestine (permanent); and Rapporteur: SESRIC (permanent).
• The agenda items of the upcoming 13th Session of OIC-StatCom are as follows:
  • Inclusive Data Collection in Social Protection
  • Ethics for New Data Sources and Technologies
  • Sustainable Development Goals: Monitoring and Reporting SDG 2 (Zero Hunger) Indicators
  • Embracing Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence in Official Statistics
  • 2020 Round of the World Population and Housing Census Programme: Lessons Learnt and The Way Forward
• The date and the venue of the upcoming 13^th Session of the OIC-StatCom as follows: Physical meeting in the 4^th quarter of 2024 in the Republic of Türkiye.

The Follow-up Meeting continued with an information session on the Tobacco Questions for Surveys (TQS) and TQS-Youth projects, which are being conducted by SESRIC, in collaboration with the CDC and the CDC Foundation.

All the documents, presentations, and other related materials of the Follow-up Meeting of the 12^th Session of the OIC Statistical Commission are available at this link.

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