Blog from May, 2022

Monday, 30 May 2022 from 12:00-13:00 hours, Bangkok time (UTC +7), verify your time here.

Please register at this link and when it’s time, click here to join the meeting.

>>>>See other Asia-Pacific Stats Café Series

The Global Network Webinar will be organized on Tuesday, 7 June: 08:30-09:30 AM NY time (check your time)

Since the original Public Sector Information Directive in 2003, the European Union (EU) has been committed to unleash the value of data for its citizens and businesses, by supporting the development of data sharing in and among its Member States. Starting from government-owned open data first, it evolved and shifted focus to data sharing in general with the European Strategy for Data in 2020.

The talk will present the spectrum of actions that the EU has undertaken to implement and support its policy, through data.europa.eu (government open data) and Support Centre for Data Sharing (data sharing in general), share the learnings from those experiences, and offer a glimpse of the “data space” model for data sharing, that characterizes all upcoming EU data policy investments, starting from the ongoing Digital Europe programme.

To receive the meeting link for this webinar please register here.

The Open House for UN PET Lab will be organized on 2 June 2022 at 10.00-11.00 am (New York time).

It will focus on the demand for PETs from the statistical community. The UN PET Lab is working under the umbrella of the United Nations Statistical Commission and its focus is therefore on supporting national statistical systems. For the second event we have asked Mr. Omar Seidu of the Ghana Statistical Service and Ms. Aberash Abaye of the Ethiopian Statistics Service to talk about the practical instances, when their offices need to consider privacy concerns either in accessing data of third parties or in disseminating micro-data. We want to keep the last 20 minutes for participants to introduce their work in this area. More information and registration can be found at: UN PET Lab Open House — UN-CEBD

In the first UN PET Lab Open House on 5 May 2022 we gave an overview of the PET Lab, including the “trade data” use case and the experience of the US Census Bureau participating in this project. Furthermore, we had 11 introductions of those working or interested in working on use cases involving PETs. This showed a wide array of communities, which are involved, such as the statistical community (BPS Indonesia), government (ICO), civil society (the evidence quarter) and private sector (duality technologies, Samsung, SIIA and others). A recording of the first event is available on the same webpage.

Last year, ESCAP’s research on the uses of big data for official statistics across countries in Asia and the Pacific discovered many challenges the NSOs face when exploring the potential of big data for official statistics. Among the biggest issues are data governance, including regulatory framework impeding the use of alternative sources of data in the production of official statistics and forming new partnerships with the private sector. The Expert Group Meeting on the Uses of Big Data for Official Statistics focused on these two main issues. One of the recommendations of that meeting was the development of a guidance on the uses of big data for official statistics.

Therefore, we are now pleased to share with you the draft Key considerations for using big data for official statistics on the DI-CoP platform for your kind review and comments. We would sincerely appreciate receiving your comments and suggestions by the end of June 2022 to ensure this can be a useful resource for NSOs in Asia and the Pacific. Please submit any questions or edits directly on the page in the comment line, or feel free to reach out to Ms Tanja Sejersen, Statistician, Statistics Division (sejersent@un.org) directly.

SD/WP/14/May 2022

To illustrate the idea of global sustainability accounting, we propose a new ledger that shows a highly aggregated and inclusive approach. With this, we respond to the call for new measures to complement GDP by the UN Secretary General. Our approach highlights the tension between human-centered and ecosystem-centered value systems. The ledger is also explicit about disservices the environment may provide to humans, and services that humans may provide to the environment (both can easily be absent in sustainability indicators). We believe that this approach will support debates that are inclusive of diverging environmental value systems and of diverging attitudes toward ecosystem restoration and technology. Most of all, it delivers an account that can compete with the seductive simplicity of GDP.

Read more: https://bit.ly/Beyond-GDP-Global

Monday, 9 May 2022 from 14:00-15:30 hours, Bangkok time (UTC +7), verify your time here.

Please register at this link and when it’s time, click here to join the meeting.

>>>>See other Asia-Pacific Stats Café Series

The Open House for UN PET Lab will be organized on Thursday 5 May 2022 at 9.30-11.00 am (New York time).

It will introduce the PET Lab, which was officially launched on 26 January 2022,  and one of the use cases.

For more information and registration, please click here. 

UNFPA will organize a webinar on 'Modelled Population Estimates' on 4 May 2022 at 8.00-9.30 am (New York Time). 

The event will include overviews of data and methods, as well as presentations from national statistical offices on their use and experience of these approaches. You can register for the event here.