Announcement of the creation of a Krakow Group
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- Category: Latest News
- Published: Monday, 23 May 2022 11:34
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Date: June 15, 2022
Time: 9:00 - 10:30 am | Eastern Daylight Time (Washington, D.C.)
Location: Register here
The event will be held on the GoToWebinar platform
Background:
Data are becoming an integral part of the daily lives of most people around the world, with global data flows increasing one thousand times over the last 20 years. The transformations emerging from this data revolution could impact all aspects of societies and economies, including improving the lives of the more than 700 million people living in extreme poverty. From information gathered in household surveys to pixels captured by satellite images, data can inform policies and spur economic activity, serving as a powerful weapon in the fight against poverty and transforming the lives of poor people. However, we can only unlock the full value of data in both traditional and new data ecosystems if we ensure that data can be safely shared, used, and reused by all stakeholders.
To that end, the World Bank’s World Development Report 2021: Data for Better Lives (WDR2021) offers an aspirational vision of an integrated national data system (INDS) as a way for countries to realize the potential of data for development, using the three principles of the social contract for data—value, trust and equity. Such a system relies on an approach to data governance that is intentional, whole-of-government, multistakeholder, and collaborative. It explicitly builds data production, protection, exchange, and use into planning and decision-making and integrates participants from civil society and the public and private sectors into the data life cycle and into the governance structures of the system. For countries to overcome the many barriers that stand in the way of implementing these data systems, the report advocates for investments in five foundational elements: human capital, trust, funding, incentives, and data demand.
To help operationalize this vision, the World Bank’s Development Data Group is organizing a virtual seminar in collaboration with the International Association for Official Statistics (IAOS). Bringing together a diverse group of discussants, the session will focus on building an INDS and the critical role NSOs can play in this process, which the WDR2021 extensively discusses.
Context:
In the current global context of an unprecedented convergence of crises, fulfilling the vision of an INDS might seem elusive. While a recent global survey on national statistical offices (NSOs)[1] attested to the resilience of NSOs amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, it has also revealed a disrupted global agenda on statistical capacity building and that some statistical systems are falling behind, particularly in low- and middle-income economies. For many governments, producing high-quality data is already a challenge in itself, and thus, data exchanges and integration among various partners may not seem feasible.
Nevertheless, according to the WDR2021, any country can take steps toward fulfilling the vision of an INDS. Using the data maturity model, the report describes the concrete steps countries can take to move closer to this vision. The data maturity model is used as an organizing framework to help determine the strengths and weaknesses of the existing data system and identify the sequential steps that can be taken to establish an INDS. The model differentiates three stages. At low levels of data maturity, countries should prioritize establishing the fundamentals of a national data system. Once the fundamentals are in place, countries should seek to initiate data flows. At advanced levels of data maturity, the goal is to optimize the system.
Target audience:
The international statistical community, both statistics producers and users from across the globe, as well as relevant private sector representatives.
Format:
The event will be 90 minutes long in a virtual panel discussion format, featuring a diverse group of discussants.
Subject areas:
A diverse group of leading members of the development, statistics, and data communities will unpack several foundational elements of an INDS—such as human capital, trust, funding, incentives, and data demand—and discuss the type of coordination and partnerships needed to advance the implementation of INDS.
Objective:
The event aims to help operationalize the vision of an INDS as put forward by the WDR2021 by:
The panel discussion will illustrate the vision of an INDS with specific, real-life examples in an effort to concretize an abstract concept for participants.
Expected outcomes:
Seminar attendees will leave the session with:
List of speakers:
Agenda:
[1] Survey on the Implementation of the Cape Town Global Action Plan for Sustainable Development Data conducted by the World Bank, UNSD, and Paris21: https://www.worldbank.org/en/research/brief/survey-on-the-implementation-of-the-cape-town-global-action-plan-for-sustainable-development-data.
The 2022 IAOS General Assembly will be held at 8:00 am - 9:00 am (CET), 28 April 2022, as part of the IAOS conference “Worthy Information for Challenging Times”, taking place in Krakow, Poland, on 26-28 April 2022.
This year the General Assembly will be in a hybrid format, allowing colleagues unable to attend the conference to join virtually.
If you wish to attend the General Assembly virtually, please email Lilia Saetova (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) to receive a link to join the meeting. Colleagues attending the General Assembly in person will be advised of arrangements during the conference.
The agenda for the meeting will be:
1. Minutes of 2021 General Assembly: for agreement (Minutes)
2. Review of 2021- 2022 activities (IAOS Annual Report 2021-2022)
3. IAOS Strategic Plan 2021-2023: for agreement (Strategic Plan)
4. Other business
Note: no hard copies of the above documents will be provided to Krakow attendees.
Please also advise Lilia Saetova if you have any other items for discussion.
We look forward to seeing as many of you as possible in Krakow or welcoming you via the virtual link.
Bill McLennan, a former head of the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), who had also headed the UK Government Statistical Service (GSS), died on 19 March 2022 at the age of 80.
In 1992, Bill was appointed Director of the Central Statistical Office (CSO) and head of the GSS of the United Kingdom, the first person from outside the UK to hold this post. The UK statistical system had been through a challenging period. He recognised the fundamental role of official statistics for democracy and that the work of the GSS needed to be better understood.
As one of his many initiatives, Bill persuaded the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Norman Lamont, to reduce ministerial access to economic statistics in advance of publication and to permit statistics to be released independently of ministers. He produced the Official Statistics Code of Practice, first published in April 1995, with the aim of promoting high standards and maintaining public confidence in official statistics. During his tenure, he proposed the merger of the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys and the CSO into the Office for National Statistics, and gained agreement for this from Prime Minister John Major.
In 1995 Bill returned to Australia to become the Australian Statistician. Bill’s strong leadership style helped the ABS gain a reputation as one of the world’s best national statistical agencies.
Bill was elected Rapporteur the United Nations Statistical Commission in 1994 and Chairman of this Commission in 1995. It was in 1994 that the Commission endorsed the first version of the Fundamental Principles for Official Statistics.
Bill retired as Australian Statistician in 2000. He was awarded a Commander of the British Empire (CBE) and a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) for significant contributions to UK and Australian statistics respectively. A more detailed obituary is provided at Obituary: Bill McLennan.
We are pleased to inform you that preparations for the 18th IAOS conference taking place on April 26-28, 2022, in Krakow, Poland, are underway. The conference will be conducted as a face-to-face event only, at the ICE Kraków Congress Centre. A tentative conference programme is now available at https://www.iaos2022.pl/programme/.
Registration for the conference is open on the conference website.
With this note we would like to invite you to benefit from the early bird registration rates which apply until March 27, 2022.
March 27 is also the deadline for registration for the Authors of Contributed Papers. This is a kind reminder and invitation for them to register in order to make it possible for the Programme Committee to form Contributed Paper Sessions which will be added to the conference programme subsequently.
We would also like to bring to your attention that the availability of hotel rooms in Krakow in late April is becoming tight, given the fact that the conference dates coincide with local holidays and other ongoing activities in town. The conference website contains detailed logistical information for the conference, including links to a variety of Krakow hotels.
Should you have any questions regarding the conference, please do not hesitate to contact the Conference Organizing Committee at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
See you in 33 days!