For over three decades, the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) has performed measurements of poverty in the Latin American countries in order to estimate its prevalence in the region using a common methodology. Economic and social changes have prompted an update of the thresholds used to quantify poverty and a review of certain aspects of the methodology.
Now that all the countries of the region have progressed towards having official poverty measurements calculated by their own public agencies, the figures produced by ECLAC aim to provide a regional overview that …
The production of official statistics calls for responsibility and commitment on the part of the competent agencies. Thus, credible statistics and reliable national statistical institutes and other members of the national statistical system are vital assets since they are essential to the design, formulation, monitoring and assessment of Government plans and programmes.This credibility is a value that gains strength over time thanks to the generation of quality statistics that comply with standards, principles and norms relating to the production process and statistical activity as…
As part of the Development Account Project on “Increasing the Contribution of Preferential Trade Agreements to Inclusive and Equitable Trade”, the Workshop on Trade Policy and Trade Indicators will review key theories of international trade, international trade data classifications, data sources, indicators and quantitative methods, among others.
This capacity building workshop aims to train officials from the Government of Jamaica in tools that will be useful for creating evidence-based policies in international trade and related areas. …
This document is intended as a guide to the adoption, adaptation and application in Latin America and the Caribbean of the United Nations National Quality Assurance Frameworks Manual for Official Statistics. It draws on the Manual and its diagnostic tools via an unofficial Spanish translation produced by the national statistical offices of Colombia and Mexico. It also draws on discussions of those inputs held with the countries of the region to obtain recommendations for adapting the Manual to the Latin American and Caribbean context.…
Among Caribbean statistical offices, there is widespread awareness of the issue of statistical confidentiality which has often led to quite strong restrictions on the availability of detailed and disaggregated census tables. In North America, Europe, Australia and New Zealand, statistical offices use disclosure control methods, particularly methods involving some form of data perturbation, to safely publish detailed and disaggregated census tables. These methods are not used in the Caribbean (or Latin America) but could safely facilitate the release of much more detailed census tables than has…
As part of ongoing efforts to strengthen the statistical capacities of National Statistical
Offices (NSOs) in the region, the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean
(ECLAC) convened a two-day Regional Training Workshop on Data Sharing, Data Ownership
and Harmonization of Survey Datasets on 26-27 August 2009 at the Cascadia Hotel, Trinidad
and Tobago. This workshop was one of the concluding activities of the Project on Improving
Household Surveys in the Caribbean which has been implemented by the ECLAC Subregional
office from 2007.…
The Generic Law on Official Statistics for Latin America was adopted by the Statistical Conference of the Americas of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean at its tenth meeting. Its purpose is to provide a regional model for Latin American countries that are interested in formulating or reformulating the legal basis for the functioning of their National Statistical Systems (NSS) and the production of official statistics.
The Generic Law defines the rights and obligations of the bodies that compose the National Statistical System as well the principles and procedures to be…
This study presents an assessment of national statistical legal frameworks across the Caribbean. It aims to ascertain the extent to which the UNFPOS are incorporated in the statistical laws of Member and Associate Member Countries of the Caribbean Development and Cooperation Committee (CDCC). Such an assessment provides the basis for making recommendations to the respective countries on policy actions needed to ensure the full incorporation of these principles in their statistics legislation thereby laying a solid foundation for the effective functioning of their NSS. Furthermore, an up-to-dat…
The data revolution for sustainable development has triggered interest in the use of big data for official statistics such that theUnited Nations Economic and Social Council considers it to be almost an obligation for statistical organizations to explore big data. Big data has been promoted as a more timely and cheaper alternative to traditional sources of official data, and one that offers great potential for monitoring the sustainable development goals. However, privacy concerns, technology and capacity remain significant obstacles to the use of big data. This study makes a case for incor…