The Bureau of the Statistical Committee recommended at its meeting held in Beirut on 9 December 2011 that a meeting for the Working Group of the ESCWA Statistical Committee be organized in order to prepare for the 43rd session of the UN Statistical Commission. Members of the Bureau considered that the meeting of the Working Group that also in the past discussed the common position of countries in the region is of a high importance. Following to this recommendation, the 5th meeting of the Working Group of the Statistical Committee witll be held in Beirut on 14 and 15 February 2012. The meeting will discuss common position of member countries on items for discussion and decision at the 43 session of the UN Statistical commission, namely the following: (a) Population and housing censuses (b) Crime statistics (c) National accounts (d) Agricultural statistics (e) Environmental-economic accounting (f) Environment statistics (g) Energy statistics (h) Statistics for natural resource-based economies (i) ICT statistics (j) National quality assurance frameworks (k) Implementation of the Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics (l) Coordination of statistical activities in the United Nations (m) Efforts in developing a plan of action on statistical development (n) Statistics of human development (o) Regional statistical development in Europe. The participants will also be invited to provide views of member countries on the evaluation of the ESCWA Statistics programme that took part in 2011. Please find attached the evaluation report and its executive summary and the full evaluation report.
