Demographic and Social Statistics

The United Nations Statistics Division, in cooperation with the Secretariat of the Pacific Community is conducting a seminar titled “Civil Registration and Vital Statistics in the Pacific Islands: Standards, Best Practice and Lessons Learnt”. Taking into consideration the particularity of the countries in the Pacific region, this event is combining the standard UNSD workshop curriculum for training in the revised Principles and Recommendations for a Vital Statistics System and the regional programmes and activities under the Brisbane Accord Group programme of work (for details see: http://www.uq.edu.au/hishub/brisbane-accord-group). The seminar will bring together civil registrars, vital statisticians and health officers from around twenty countries and territories in the Pacific region as well as contributions from UNICEF, WHO and ESCAP. The event will take place from 22-25 February in the headquarters of the Secretariat of the Pacific Community, in Noumea, New Caledonia.

The purpose of the Workshop is to present international standards for conducting population and housing censuses. It will provide an opportunity for exploring ways of strengthening regional cooperation in establishing joint ventures during various stages of population and housing censuses in the Pacific region. The workshop will also cover the use of Optical Character Recognition (OCR) for census and survey data capture, and Geographical Information System (GIS) and other geospatial technologies in census mapping activities. More specifically, the Workshop will: (1)Present revised international standards for conducting population and housing censuses, focusing on recommended core topics as identified in the United Nations Principles and Recommendations Revision 2; (2) Discuss ways of improving the capacity of national statistical offices to implement the revised Principles and Recommendations by reviewing a proposed Pacific Islands model census questionnaire and possibilities for its coordinated implementation ; (3) Present and discuss new approaches in census geography, including the use of Geographical Information Systems and Global Positioning Systems in census mapping, data collection and dissemination, and disaster management and explore the use of optical character recognition solutions (OCR) for census and survey data capture in the SPC region.