ECLAC Member Nations to Analize Development of Statistics in Latin America and the Caribbean

(15 April 2010) Government officials and experts from 19 member countries of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) from the Americas and Europe will meet in Santiago, Chile to examine the development of statistics in the region in censuses, Millennium Development Goals, gender and measuring poverty, among other areas.

During the Ninth Meeting of the Executive Committee of the Statistical Conference of the Americas of ECLAC (SCA-ECLAC), participants will review regional and international cooperation programmes on statistics during 2009-2011 and assess the activities of the Working Groups of the Conference.

The meeting of the SCA-ECLAC Executive Committee will be inaugurated on Tuesday, April 20 at 9:30 a.m. by the Director of ECLAC's Statistics and Economics Projections Division Luis Beccaria and the Director of the National Statistics Bureau of the Dominican Republic, Pablo Tactuk, who presides the Executive Committee.

Representatives of multilateral agencies and the United Nations system will also attend.

The Statistical Conference of the Americas is a subsidiary body of the Commission that seeks to promote the development and improvement of national statistics and assure they are internationally comparable. The Conference also promotes international, regional and bilateral cooperation on statistics in the region.

During the three-day meeting, delegates will also review the advances and upcoming goals and tasks of initiatives on international statistical cooperation, such as the 2011 Round of the International Comparison Programme (ICP). The ICP is a global initiative that will gather data on the prices of goods and services of a basket of comparable consumer products in over 170 countries to estimate their Purchasing Power Parities (PPP), which is a means to compare real values in different currencies.

The meeting will also serve as a forum to promote events and activities in the region for the celebration of the first World Statistics Day, established by the United Nations Statistical Commission for October 20, 2010.

Lastly, the Executive Committee will discuss the priorities of the Conference that will be presented at ECLAC's Thirty-third Session to take place in Brasilia from May 30 to June 1.

 The media is welcome to attend the conference.

For more information, contact ECLAC's Information Services.Email: dpisantiago@cepal.org; telephone: (56-2) 210-2040/2149.