The International Statistical Conference “Investment in the Future 2” was held 14 - 15 September, 2009, building on the success of the first encounter, which took place in the Czech Republic in 2004. On both occasions, participants shared their findings, observations and experiences in the elaboration of statistics.

The event was organized by the Czech Statistical Office, the Czech National Bank and the Prague University of Economics to mark the 90th anniversary of Czech Official Statistics (CSU).

Among the speakers were statistical institutions inform various European countries, including: France, Italy, Germany, Poland, Estonia, Slovakia, etc. From North America, Canada and the United States participated, while the Observatory for the information Society in Latin America and the Caribbean. (OSILAC), of UN-ECLAC, represented Latin America and the Caribbean.

On this occasion, OSILAC presented a study entitled “Progress and challenges of measuring the Information Society in LAC”. In this document, we can appreciate results obtained by the establishment of indicators about access and use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in the household surveys of the countries of the region, among other information.

Among the more notable results, one can appreciate factors that have the greatest impact on the digital divide, which include: education, income and geographic location. Age and gender also appear to be significant, although to a lesser extent. This work was produced in collaboration with The Partnership on Measuring ICT for Development.

The paper prepared for the Congress can be downloaded here. The other presentations can be downloaded from the event Web site, in the “Proceedings” section of the main menu.