The Coordination Meeting was organized by GCC-Stat on 21 April 2015 in Muscat, Sultane of Oman in order to improve communication and cooperation among regional and international statistical organizations working in the GCC region. The meeting aims to exchange information on upcoming activities, prevent the dublication of efforts related to statistics and statistical capacity building and share experiences to move forward for the development of statistical work in the GCC region. The topics discussed in the meeting included a thorough review of the regional statistical progress and developments, the strategy and action plan of GCC-Stat, and deliberations about possible cooperation opportunities towards establishing a common and harmonized agenda for developing statistical capacities in the GCC region.

HE Ambassador Musa Kulaklıkaya, Director General, and Mrs. Zehra Zumrut Selcuk, Senior Researcher represented the Centre thereat. The representatives of Arab Institute for Training and Research in Statistics (AITRS), Arab Monetary Fund (AMF), United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (UNESCWA), International Labor Organization Regional Office (ILO), United Nations Population Fund GCC Office (UNFPA), United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization Office in Oman (FAO) and Middle East and North Africa Center for Investment (MCI) also attended the meeting.

Ambassador Musa Kulaklıkaya, Director General of SESRIC delivered a brief presentation about the main statistical activities of SESRIC. Inviting all of the participants to the Fifth Session of OIC-Statistical Commission that will be held on 12-14 May 2015 in Ankara, Turkey, he highlighted that the Commission has successfully become a platform for exchanging experiences and best practices among NSO of OIC member countries since 2011. Ambassador Kulaklıkaya informed the participants about the projects of SESRIC including “OIC Accreditation and Certification Programme for Official Statisticians (OIC-CPOS)”, “OIC Peer Assessment for NSOs”, Enhancing Poverty Statistics”, “Integration of Tobacco Questions for Surveys (TQS)”, “Islamic Banking and Finance Statistics” and highlighted the willingness and readiness of SESRIC to cooperate with international partners regarding these projects.

Ambassador Kulaklıkaya also stated that over 90 trainings had been conducted and 50 trainings are planned to be implemented within 2015-2016 under the SESRIC’s flagship StatCab (Statistical Capacity Building) programme which is a large scale capacity development project following South-South cooperation approach.

Documents

• Agenda (English)
• Minutes of the Meeting (English)

Presentation

•  Statistical Activities of SESRIC (English)

Photos