Versions Compared
Key
- This line was added.
- This line was removed.
- Formatting was changed.
Activities
To support countries in strengthening their environment statistics, ESCAP has convened sub-regional workshops and an Expert Workshop on Land Accounting. ESCAP has also participated in workshops and technical assistance at the national level in several member States.
List of Events and Activities
| Expand | |
|---|---|
|
Workshops
Sub-regional Workshops on Environment Statistics
Several countries in Asia and the Pacific have expressed the need to improve environment statistics programmes of national statistical offices (NSOs) to respond to demands arising from the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and other national development priorities.
The workshops on environment statistics for Asia-Pacific sub-regions – Pacific, Southeast Asia, South and Southwest Asia, East and Northeast Asia, and North and Central Asia – offer opportunities to build capacity on basic approaches to environment statistics, the Framework for the Development of Environment Statistics (FDES) and the System of Environmental-Economic Accounting (SEEA), as well as strategic planning for improving environment statistics.
| Expand |
|---|
The workshops bring together participants from countries that have expressed a need to strengthen their capacity to:
The target audience for the workshops is mid-to-senior-level technical staff from NSOs, data providers (environment and natural resource departments) and data users (finance and planning departments). The workshops are opportunities for participants to:
Participants are provided, in advance, with the ESCAP Diagnostic Tool. They are expected to present a 15-minute overview of the application of the Diagnostic Tool to their country context. In addition, participants from offices with existing environment statistics programmes are invited to present as showcase countries during other workshop sessions. |
Sub-Regional Workshops on Environment Statistics | Date | Venue |
|---|---|---|
Sub-Regional Workshops on Environment Statistics in East and North-East Asia | 13-15 March 2017 | Incheon, Republic of Korea |
Sub-Regional Workshops on Environment Statistics in South and South-West Asia | 6-8 February 2017 | Bangkok, Thailand |
Sub-Regional Workshops on Environment Statistics in South-East Asia | 2-4 November 2016 | Bangkok, Thailand |
Sub-Regional Workshops on Environment Statistics in Pacific | 14-16 September 2016 | Nadi, Fiji |
Sub-Regional Workshops on Environment Statistics in North and Central Asia | 15-17 November 2017 | Almaty, Kazakhstan |
Pages
| Page Tree | ||
|---|---|---|
|
Expert Workshops
Land Accounts
Background
| Expand |
|---|
| The surface of the earth: the land, freshwater, coasts and oceans, is the space in which most human activities take place. As with business and population registers, coherent and agreed-upon statistics on what exists on the surface of a nation is fundamental to governing and managing it. Land accounting seeks to standardize and integrate the spatial aspects of environmental, social and economic statistics to provide such a foundation.Monitoring progress towards the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development demands spatially-detailed statistics across many dimensions: for disaggregating statistics by urban/rural, for distinguishing areas with access to clean water and roads, for distinguishing catchment, marine & coastal, forest, agricultural, mountain and protected areas, for distinguishing degraded areas and establishing land tenure, just to mention a few.Statistically describing a nation’s biophysical area is treated in the SEEA Central Framework (SEEA‑CF) in terms of Land, Forest and Soil Asset Accounts. It is also described in the FDES (United Nations Statistics Division, 2013) as key statistics on land cover, land use, ecosystems and biodiversity. The SEEA Experimental Ecosystem Accounting guidelines (SEEA-EEA, United Nations et al., 2014b) provide further guidance on delineating ecosystem assets, compiling information on their condition, the values of their ecosystem services and linking these values to standard economic accounts. The UN initiative on Global Geospatial Information Management (UN-GGIM) knowledge base on National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI)[1]highlights the experience of countries in integrating such spatial information.Although many countries have been compiling information on their land, few have experience in integrating and standardizing this information from the many sources and methods used. Integrating this disparate information, through land accounting, is essential to provide a comprehensive picture of the environmental state of a country and to guide plans to improve or maintain this state.Traditionally, producing land information has not been the core mandate of National Statistical Offices (NSOs). However, for at least 30 years, many NSOs have developed the capacity to conduct spatial analysis and to standardize and integrate land data from many sources. This has required close collaboration with national stakeholders such as departments of environment, natural resources, fisheries, oceans, agriculture, forestry, planning, and land registration. The benefit of including NSOs in this process has been their role as broker between the different departmental mandates, disciplines and standards.ESCAP, in collaboration with partners, have been providing technical assistance and training on environment statistics and environmental-economic accounting to countries individually and through sub-regional workshops. In all sub-regional workshops, participants presented self-assessments of priorities for strengthening environment statistics. Several countries identified land accounts as priorities. Work is in progress in Nepal, Vanuatu, Myanmar (with the World Wildlife Fund) specifically on piloting land and forest accounts, and in Indonesia on land and ecosystem accounts. |
Purpose of the workshop
| Expand |
|---|
The overall aim of the workshop is to address member States’ stated requirements for technical guidance on how to begin or improve their land accounts. The 3-day workshop will bring together NSOs and natural resource departments with regional and international experts. The workshop will consist of four main components:
Member States which have initiated or have expressed their readiness to initiate land, forest or ecosystem accounts will be invited. Two participants from each selected country will be nominated: one from the NSO and another from a natural resources department, both of whom are responsible for producing land statistics. Participants will be requested to make a short presentation on their priorities, status of work, challenges of land statistics. If work is in progress, they are invited to bring their data (in GIS, maps and tables) for detailed discussion during the technical assistance and problem-solving labs. [1] National Spatial Data Infrastructure, see: http://ggim.un.org/knowledgebase/KnowledgebaseCategory3.aspx. |
Ocean Accounts
Vital information to monitor and evaluate progress towards SDG 14 is available, but it is fragmented across scientific domains, policy frameworks and institutions. ESCAP and UN Environment are leading a global effort to develop statistical guidance based on the System of Environmental Economic Accounting (SEEA). The Ocean Accounts Framework provides guidance on selecting, prioritizing and standardizing data of national, regional and global importance, so that it can be integrated and thereby provide a comprehensive view. This requires a conversation among scientists, policy makers and statisticians.
Expert Workshops | Date | Venue |
|---|---|---|
12-15 November 2019 | Sydney, Australia | |
Asia and the Pacific Regional Expert Workshop on Ocean Accounts | 1-3 August 2018 | Bangkok, Thailand |
Regional Expert Workshop on Land Accounting for SDG Monitoring and Reporting | 25-27 September 2017 | Bangkok, Thailand |
Other Related Workshops
Climate Change-Related Statistics
The ESCAP course on Climate Change Statistics combines modules from the SEEA-CF, SEEA-EEA, SEEA-AFF, Ocean Accounts with an overview of climate change science. Participants are guided through a week-long exercise to determine climate change priorities in their countries, research appropriate data and make recommendations for statistical development to address their priorities.
Other Related Workshops | Date | Venue |
|---|---|---|
| 18-25 November and 2 December 2020 | Virtual |
17-21 September 2018 | Nadi, Fiji | |
Kyrgyzstan National Workshop on Shared Environmental Information Systems (SEIS) and Environmental Statistics for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) | 11 - 14 June 2018 | Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan |
Regional Training Course on Climate Change-Related Statistics | 27 November - 1 December 2017 | Chiba, Japan |
Calendar
Team Calendars id d52ce692-d1bd-4fab-9e6a-25858d6911a2
Other Events
Other events participated by UNESCAP, Statistics Division
| Conferences/Symposia | Date | Venue |
|---|---|---|
| 22-24 October 2018 | Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE) |