SESRIC participated in the first meetings of the General Assembly and Steering Group of the International Forum on TOSSD (IFT), hosted by the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (NORAD) in Oslo.

During the meetings, Mr Abdulhamit ÖZTÜRK, Senior Statistics Officer at SESRIC provided an overview of the Centre's statistical outreach activities, including training courses, workshops and webinars. He underlined the potential for collaboration with the Members and Secretariat of the Forum on organising statistical activities related to TOSSD methodology for the benefit of OIC countries. Additionally, he emphasized the role of the OIC Statistical Commission as a high-level platform for introducing and elaborating on the TOSSD methodology.

Forum members from the OIC countries and institutions also participated. Burkina Faso and Qatar shared their country experiences during the General Assembly meeting. Representatives of Azerbaijan, Cameroon, and Türkiye, as well as the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB), also participated in the Forum and contributed to the discussions. The Forum provided a platform for SESRIC to hold bilateral discussions with the OIC member countries attending and the possible collaboration with IsDB concerning the organisation of joint statistical capacity building activities.

SESRIC has been selected as one of the Steering Group members among the intergovernmental organisations together with IsDB. Bangladesh, Burkina Faso, Egypt, Gabon, Indonesia, Nigeria and Senegal were also been selected as members of the Steering Group.

The first meetings of the IFT brought together development cooperation specialists and statisticians to discuss improving the TOSSD methodology, and address the needs of data users.

Among others, the Forum meetings covered the following topics:

• Implementation of a data review mechanism by TOSSD recipients
• Refinements to the TOSSD methodology
• Further development of the list of TOSSD recipients
• Review of the latest data collection process and peer learning sessions to facilitate reporting to TOSSD

For more information about the Forum: https://www.tossd.org/international-forum/