UNECE Statistics

💡 On 14-18 October we hosted the biennial meeting of our #cesUNECE United Nations Economic Commission for Europe group of experts on business registers. The online meeting was attended by more than 150 participants from around the world.      🔢 The statistical business register (SBR) is the backbone of the production of economic statistics. It’s crucial for collecting information from businesses and for integrating data from administrative and other sources. An SBR with a comprehensive list of enterprises and other business units and information about their characteristics is crucial to producing coherent economic statistics.    Experts at the meeting discussed a range of topics, including:    ▫️ Implementing the revised classifications of economic statistics (ISCI rev.4 and NACE Rev. 2.1) in the SBR; a major challenge in many countries. It’s crucial to use these international classifications to ensure the quality and international comparability of business statistics.  ▫️ How to exploit and integrate new data sources in the production of the SBR, including classifying large and complex enterprise groups  ▫️ We saw country examples of how to produce new statistics, for instance on the emergence and growth of businesses, and on gender and entrepreneurship, by linking the SBR with information from other sources    The meeting included a presentation of the Maturity Model for Business Registers, developed by the UN Committee of Experts on Business and Trade Statistics (UNCEBTS). The model is a tool for countries to evaluate the development of the SBR and identify areas for improvement.     📊 The thread running through the meeting was the drive to modernize the SBR to produce more and better business statistics in the most efficient way. This includes exploiting new IT tools, including machine learning and other #AI-based tools for data analysis, which will continue to be high on the agenda in future work on SBRs.    👏 Thanks to all the contributors for the strong engagement and thought-provoking discussions.    🔗 All the papers and presentations from the meeting are on our website at https://lnkd.in/ecsx4vTk     #ECESD

📊 Recap of the UNECE Expert Meeting on Human Resources and Training (HRMT) 2024. 🤔 At the heart of every organization are its people. An organization is only as good as the talent it nurtures. In today’s fast-evolving technical landscape, how can national statistical offices (NSOs) best support their workforce, foster growth, and effectively manage training? During the 2.5-day meeting, HR and training experts discussed critical challenges and exchanges tips, including: ▫️ Shifting from traditional classroom sessions to micro-learning, where learning is integrated into the job, with a focus on skills over degrees in recruitment. ▫️ Difficulties of recruiting and retaining people with hard skills but also growing them for managers with soft skills ▫️ Lessons learned from different approaches in building data science capability and creating multidisciplinary teams ▫️ Journey of HR analytics - from simple data provider to analytical insights providers - and importance of ensuring governance and stewardship for people data ▫️ Importance of engaging veterans who not only have immense experience and knowledge but also have passion about official statistics that can be shared with young generations ▫️ The importance of first impressions: how to effectively onboard staff and cultivate a people-focused organizational culture ▫️ Providing mental health support through counseling services for staff well-being ▫️ Current status of hybrid working arrangement and perceptions from staff and managers ▫️ Experiences with employment brand building and importance of collaboration between HR and communication for it ▫️ Strategies against corruptions and approaches for ethical dilemmas 💫 We thank the chairs of the meeting - Anna Borowska, Melanie Forsberg, Fabrizio Rotundi, Agnieszka Kościelniak, Jeremy Visschers, presenters, and participants for making this meeting a success! 📘 All meeting materials can be found on the UNECE event page: https://lnkd.in/eDdGEu3T #ModernStats #HLGMOS

Today is International Day for the Eradication of Poverty. Why not mark it by registering now for our upcoming United Nations Economic Commission for Europe meetings on poverty statistics? #Poverty comes in many forms. Not only a lack of income and material resources, poverty also includes many other dimensions: lack of access to safe housing and nutritious food; barriers to accessing justice, health care and education; and limits to political participation. All these things are hard to define, and even harder to measure. But statisticians work actively to develop ways to do so, enabling decision-makers to design, enact and monitor data-driven policies to reduce poverty and inequality, and empowering people to hold those decision-makers to account. Our annual #cesUNECE poverty statistics meetings showcase the latest developments in poverty measurement, providing a platform for national and international statistical organizations to share experiences, best practices and research findings. Our workshop on 📅 27 November will include practical training on estimating and analyzing subjective poverty, with practical examples and training materials including #R code. Our expert meeting on 📅 28-29 November will combine presentations and discussions on both traditional and emerging approaches to understanding poverty, including new forms of measurement and new data sources. Here are just a few of the highlights of this year’s agenda: ❇️ Multidimensional poverty ❇️ Impacts of inflation on poverty & inequality ❇️ Energy poverty ❇️ Climate change and poverty ❇️ Transport poverty ❇️ Economic insecurity. 🖥️ More about the meetings on our website: https://lnkd.in/dHHpi-Nx ☑️ Register for the workshop here: https://lnkd.in/dNNSBE9E ✅ and for the Expert Meeting here: https://lnkd.in/dDYxSr2C #SDG1 End poverty in all its forms everywhere #SDG10 Reduce inequality within and among countries #SDG16 promote just, peaceful and inclusive societies #PovertyEradication

Today is International Day for the Eradication of Poverty. Why not mark it by registering now for our upcoming United Nations Economic Commission for Europe meetings on poverty statistics? #Poverty comes in many forms. Not only a lack of income and material resources, poverty also includes many other dimensions: lack of access to safe housing and nutritious food; barriers to accessing justice, health care and education; and limits to political participation. All these things are hard to define, and even harder to measure. But statisticians work actively to develop ways to do so, enabling decision-makers to design, enact and monitor data-driven policies to reduce poverty and inequality, and empowering people to hold those decision-makers to account. Our annual #cesUNECE poverty statistics meetings showcase the latest developments in poverty measurement, providing a platform for national and international statistical organizations to share experiences, best practices and research findings. Our workshop on 📅 27 November will include practical training on estimating and analyzing subjective poverty, with practical examples and training materials including #R code. Our expert meeting on 📅 28-29 November will combine presentations and discussions on both traditional and emerging approaches to understanding poverty, including new forms of measurement and new data sources. Here are just a few of the highlights of this year’s agenda: ❇️ Multidimensional poverty ❇️ Impacts of inflation on poverty & inequality ❇️ Energy poverty ❇️ Climate change and poverty ❇️ Transport poverty ❇️ Economic insecurity. 🖥️ More about the meetings on our website: https://lnkd.in/dHHpi-Nx ☑️ Register for the workshop here: https://lnkd.in/dNNSBE9E ✅ and for the Expert Meeting here: https://lnkd.in/dDYxSr2C #SDG1 End poverty in all its forms everywhere #SDG10 Reduce inequality within and among countries #SDG16 promote just, peaceful and inclusive societies #PovertyEradication

🌍 Promoting Compilation of Financial Accounts! From 1 to 4 October 2024, EFTA and UNECE Statistics organized the third annual Workshop on Financial Accounts at European Free Trade Association (EFTA) House in Brussels, with the support of Eurostat, the European Central Bank (ECB), Statistics Netherland (Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek), and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Similarly to previous years, the workshop was targeted at EFTA Partner Countries and the countries benefitting from the EU IPA funds. 🚀 Bringing together over 90 experts from national statistical offices, central banks and international organizations– both in person and online – the workshop focused on developing or strengthening financial accounts, which provide important information for decision making. 💰 Why are financial accounts important? Since the 2008 financial crisis, they have played a crucial role in promoting transparency and accountability in both the public and private sectors. Policymakers rely on this data to assess the impact of fiscal and monetary policies, evaluate debt sustainability, financial vulnerabilities and risks, and helping them to design strategies that promote economic stability and growth. Financial accounts provide for example information on indebtedness of households or enterprises, which sectors are the main borrowers or lenders in the economy or how financial wealth is spread among economic sectors or population groups. Participants discussed: ▫️ The upcoming 2025 System of National Accounts (SNA) ▫️ Analytical and policy uses of financial accounts ▫️ Data collection and compilation challenges ▫️ The recording and impact of new global phenomena like cryptocurrencies or cross-border illicit financial flows ▫️ Compiling and analyzing who-to-whom matrices for deeper insights into economic interconnectedness. 💡 Practical exercises ensured participants left with enhanced skills and new perspectives. 🙌 A big thanks to Eurostat, ECB, IMF, and Statistics Netherlands for their invaluable contributions and to all participants for their enthusiasm and expertise. We look forward to continuing our work together to improve financial transparency and accountability worldwide. #ECESD #FinancialAccounts

Our United Nations Economic Commission for Europe #UNECECensusWeek took place here in Geneva on 30 September - 4 October, with an agenda packed full of rich discussions on the best ways to collect, compile and communicate #census data. 👨👩👧👦 Censuses are a cornerstone of official statistics. Info on the size, composition, location and characteristics of the population is central to policymaking, and census data form the foundation of many indicators for monitoring the #SDGs. 💵 But they’re often the biggest and sometimes the most expensive project a national statistical office undertakes. We heard during #UNECECensusWeek about innovative ways to make them cheaper, faster, more efficient, more inclusive and more accurate, as countries pave the way for their censuses of the 2030 round and beyond. Some key highlights included: 🍁 Statistics Canada | Statistique Canada's Christine Leger shared innovative ways to engage Canadians to take part in the census, harnessing the promise of influencers, playlists and even Star Wars references! 🗺️ Johannes H. Uhl of the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre walked us through the basics of measuring urbanization with #DEGURBA: how to do it & how it helps us understand the world, with harmonized definitions of what we mean when we call something urban, rural, town and city. 📊 Office for National Statistics' Dominic Webber talked us through the UK's plans for transforming population and migration statistics using a Dynamic Population Model based on integrating administrative data sources. 👍 Huge thanks to all the experts who contributed, as well as the almost 160 members of our 13 task forces developing the next edition of our regional census recommendations, whose draft chapters were presented for discussion and review at the expert meeting. 👏 Special thanks to our steering group and especially its chair, Eric Schulte Nordholt! 🔍 All papers and presentation slides are available on the meeting webpage: https://lnkd.in/dHNpjRHF

2024 Workshop and Expert Meeting on Statistics for Sustainable Development Goals 🌍 This week, from Tuesday to Thursday, experts from more than 30 countries and many of our partner organizations will gather in Tirana, Albania, to discuss key issues for Statistics for SDGs. 💡 The forward-looking agenda includes discussions on lessons learned from providing Statistics for SDGs, overlapping frameworks and the future of monitoring sustainable development. In addition, we will discuss important matters for SDG indicator availability and how to manage relations with policy makers. Alongside the agenda, papers, and presentations, you can find information on how to follow the Workshop and Expert Meeting on the meeting website. 👏 Many thanks to INSTAT for hosting these events! https://lnkd.in/emeJ9Mc6

Our #cesUNECE Bureau has wrapped up its 2024 sessions with inspiring discussions in Warsaw, Poland. The Bureau of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe’s Conference of European Statisticians guides our work and determines our focus to keep us at the forefront of supporting and modernizing official statistics. This week many experts who lead our task forces and steering groups joined us to present their work to the Bureau. We heard from: ·       Esther Lauw (Australian Bureau of Statistics) on meeting user needs and maintaining relevance ·       Otto Swertz (Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek) and Michelle McMillan (Statistics Canada | Statistique Canada) on climate change-related statistics ·       Jennifer Banim (CSO (Central Statistics Office Ireland)) and Roberta Quadrelli (International Energy Agency (IEA) on administrative microdata for climate, energy and environment statistics ·      Barteld Braaksma (CBS Netherlands) on linking data across domains and sources ·       Johanna Pakarinen (Tilastokeskus - Statistics Finland) on measuring the circular economy ·       Franck Schueller (Statistisches Bundesamt (Destatis) on measuring the quality of employment ·       Gerard Eding (CBS Netherlands) on implementing the 2025 System of National Accounts in CES countries. It’s thanks to experts like these, working with us as representatives of national statistical offices and international organizations, that we can produce the many valuable products mandated by CES. 👏 A huge thank you to these experts, to all Bureau members and their colleagues who contributed. And a special thanks to Dominik Rozkrut for leading the deliberations and to your Statistics Poland team for making the event possible!

Do you use our United Nations Economic Commission for Europe statistical data portal? It's time for our annual user satisfaction survey! Let us know what you think in our 3-minute survey, and help us improve to better serve you with relvant, comparable and up-to-date data: https://lnkd.in/d3Ybbx-f

We at United Nations Economic Commission for Europe were proud to see our very own expert in statistical modernization & innovation, Amilina Kipkeeva, discussing the promises and perils of AI in official stats today and showcasing our #modernstats work, including a compilation of practical use cases. Among the many thought-provoking questions: can AI help to narrow the divide between the more advanced and less advanced statistical systems, or will it widen the gap?