The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) and the Statistical Authority of the European Union (Eurostat) signed an administrative arrangement on cooperation in the field of statistics on Thursday, March 9. The ceremony, which was held virtually, was led by the United Nations regional organization’s Executive Secretary, José Manuel Salazar-Xirinachs, and Mariana Kotzeva, Director General of Eurostat.
The agreement’s objective is to carry out activities that will serve to share knowledge between the parties; facilitate opportunities for technical cooperation and collaboration on research; and provide greater links between Eurostat and the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean with regard to collecting and producing statistics.
During the virtual ceremony, both representatives praised the opportunity to formalize the long and close cooperation relationship between the two institutions and exchanged viewpoints on issues of mutual interest that will be part of the agreement.
“ECLAC and Eurostat share the common objective of promoting sustainable and inclusive development, and we believe that cooperation in statistical data collection and analysis will greatly enhance our efforts towards achieving this goal,” stated the United Nations regional commission’s Executive Secretary, José Manuel Salazar-Xirinachs.
Mariana Kotzeva, Director General of Eurostat, explained that every year, the technical teams of each institution will transform the general priorities established in the agreement into a concrete plan of action, with the goal of “resolving the statistical issues that are more important for development together.”
“Statistics can only be beneficial if they are comparable across the globe,” Mariana Kotzeva stressed.
Eurostat’s experience in this area, José Manuel Salazar-Xirinachs indicated, is very valuable for supporting the activities of the working groups of the Statistical Conference of the Americas, a subsidiary body of ECLAC that contributes to the progress of policies on statistics and statistical activities in the region’s countries and promotes international, regional and bilateral cooperation among national statistical offices and international and regional agencies.
In addition, ECLAC is currently implementing a project for Strengthening the Geospatial Capabilities of National Statistical Offices to Follow-up the 2030 Agenda in Latin America and the Caribbean, which is financed by Pillar 2 of the European Union’s Technical Cooperation and includes various kinds of activities.
During the virtual ceremony, the head of ECLAC was accompanied by the organization’s Deputy Executive Secretary for Management and Programme Analysis, Raúl García-Buchaca, as well as the Director of the Statistics Division, Rolando Ocampo.
