Hosted by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP), the Committee for the Coordination of Statistical Activities (CCSA) held its fourteenth Session in Bangkok, Thailand, on September 9-11, 2009. The session was jointly chaired by the two Co-chairs of the Committee - Mr. Paul Cheung, Director of the United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD) and Mr. Pieter Everaers, Director of External Cooperation, Communication and Key Indicators of Eurostat. Representatives of the member institutions of the CCSA participated to the Session. Dr. Savas Alpay, Director General of the Statistical, Economic and Social Research and Training Centre for Islamic Countries (SESRIC), represented the SESRIC during the Session.

The Committee held a special session on Governance of the Global Statistical System and the role of CCSA. The purpose of the session was: (i) to increase awareness about global statistical projects and to discuss what role the CCSA could play in their implementation; (ii) to find a better balance between formal and informal coordination mechanisms; (iii) to review and better define the scope of areas of effective cooperation for CCSA, especially with respect to new statistical developments; (iv) to discuss whether a modified governance structure was necessary, especially for the implementation of statistical standards.

The Committee then took notes of the below reports prepared by the different CCSA member institutions:

• Report of the Task Team on Population Estimates (UN Population Division)
• Use of non-official data in imputations/estimations made by the International Organizations (World Trade Organization)
• Reporting Mechanism on Statistical Capacity Building Activities - Report of Task Team 1: Partner Report on Support to Statistics (PRESS) (PARIS 21 Secretariat)
• Modalities of data sharing among international organizations (European Central Bank)
• 2010 Conference on Data Quality for International Organizations

Information about the below issues were given during the Session:

• Guidelines for the implementation of the quality assurance frameworks for international and supranational organizations compiling statistics (Eurostat)
• International Statistical Processes Assessment Checklist (Eurostat)
• Celebration of the World Statistics Day (UNSD)
• SDMX (Eurostat)

Under the item of other business, below topics were discussed:

• Inventory of Global Statistical Standards
• Global Geographic Information Management
• Development of an internationally agreed National Quality Assurance Framework (NQAF)
• Informal Coordination Mechanism Initiative in the ESCAP region
• Inter-Agency Coordination Group on Tourism Statistics
• Statistics for Result Facility (SRF)
• 41st Session of the UN Statistics Commission
• Directory of Statistical Organizations

The Committee agreed that its fifteenth session would be held in New York in the morning of 22 February 2010, back-to-back with the 41st Session of the United Nations Statistical Commission.

For more information, please visit: http://unstats.un.org

• Final Report of the 14th Meeting of the Committee for the Coordination of Statistical Activities