As the event came to a close, countries recognized the importance of strengthening data governance and administration in national statistical systems by fostering regulatory and institutional frameworks.

The Thirteenth Meeting of the Statistical Conference of the Americas (SCA) concluded today at the main headquarters of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) in Santiago, Chile, recognizing the importance of strengthening data governance and administration in national statistical systems by fostering regulatory and institutional frameworks that ensure technical autonomy, transparency, interoperability and sustainability in the production and use of official data.

This intergovernmental meeting – which is the main forum for discussing the development of statistics in the region – brought together on November 25-27 authorities from Latin American and Caribbean countries’ National Statistics Offices along with specialists and representatives of agencies, funds and programs in the United Nations system.

During the Conference’s closing session, Uruguay took over as Chair of the Statistical Conference of the Americas for the 2026-2027 period. The new Executive Committee is also made up of the Bahamas, Belize, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Honduras, Peru and Spain.

Marcelo Bisogno, Director of the National Institute of Statistics (INE) of Uruguay, expressed gratitude for his country’s nomination as Chair of the SCA and emphasized the challenges that the region’s countries face on statistical matters, especially in a context of technological and social change.

He stressed that the generation of synergies among the different countries of the region is very positive and congratulated ECLAC for offering a space that allows for maintaining and strengthening them.

Meanwhile, Mildred Martínez, General Director of the National Office of Statistics of the Dominican Republic – the country that chaired the Thirteenth Meeting of the Statistical Conference of the Americas of ECLAC – highlighted the work carried out in the last two years and echoed the importance of synergy between countries, “which contributes in a fundamental way to strengthening national and regional statistical systems.”

On behalf of ECLAC’s Executive Secretary, José Manuel Salazar-Xirinachs, the Director of the Commission’s Statistics Division, Rolando Ocampo, commended the agreements and progress made during the three-day meeting. He also thanked the countries that comprise the SCA’s new Executive Committee and all the event’s participants.

At the meeting, the participating countries approved a Resolution that, among other points, highlights the progress made by the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean in modernizing their statistics infrastructure and, in particular, in the use of administrative records and the development of population and housing registers, and the need to ensure quality, coverage and the protection of personal data in those processes.

It also underscores the importance of the Beyond GDP initiative and the valuable contribution of the high-level expert group to the development of new conceptual frameworks and indicators that more comprehensively reflect the economic, social and environmental dimensions of sustainable development.

The Resolution recognizes that the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development has been a fundamental catalyst for the strengthening of national statistical systems and the design of more comprehensive multidimensional development metrics, and stresses the importance of drawing on the lessons learned in follow-up of the Sustainable Development Goals to guide the conceptual and methodological frameworks underpinning the metrics that are complementary to GDP, ensuring the relevance, comparability and usefulness thereof for evidence-based public policy formulation.

In addition, it calls on national statistical offices, regional bodies and United Nations system entities to maintain continued and effective cooperation, with a view to strengthening the empirical, methodological and conceptual basis of metrics that are complementary to GDP and moving towards a modern, inclusive and people-centered statistical agenda.

Finally, the countries adopted the Strategic Plan 2026-2035 of the Statistical Conference of the Americas of ECLAC as the regional frame of reference for guiding the strengthening, modernization and cooperation of national statistical systems in Latin America and the Caribbean, with the aim of promoting the production and use of high-quality, comparable and accessible official statistics for the region’s sustainable development.