Webinars

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Published: Tuesday, 13 October 2020 09:31

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IAOS Webinars

“The Independence of Statistical Institutions with a Focus on Arab Region and North Africa” Webinar - 2 November 2022

In 2014, the UN Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics (UN FPOS) were endorsed by the UN General Assembly. The Fundamental Principles set the framework for the fundamental values and principles that govern statistical work, and recognize that in order to be effective, the fundamental values and principles that govern statistical work have to be guaranteed by legal and institutional frameworks and respected at all political levels and by all stakeholders in national statistical systems.

However, globally issues of misuse and declining trust in official statistics have become more pronounced in recent years. In response to this the IAOS has recently established the Krakow Group. This group’s mandate includes helping to identify the main issues to be tackled in relation to misuse, governance, trust and ethics.

Each region has specific challenges. In the case of the Arab region, including North Africa, the challenges of enhancing trust in official statistics and successfully implementing the UN FPOS, are exacerbated by the ongoing instability in different parts of the region.

The IAOS organised this webinar to help official statisticians in the region discuss some of the regional specific challenges in implementing the UN FPOS, in particular how statistical institutions maintain their independency especially in the time of instability.

Speakers:

Dr. Misha Belkindas, IAOS President/Chair

Dr. Qasem Alzoubi, NICST Director, Member of IAOS Executive Committee

Dr. Ola Awad, President of Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS)

Mr. Hedi Saidi, Director of Arab Institute for Training and Research

Dr. Abdallah Alzoubi, Population and Development Expert

Read the presentations from the webinar below:

• Dr. Ola Awad

Watch the video recording of the webinar here

"Big Data and Official Statistics in Africa – Maximising the Opportunities" Webinar - 6 October 2022

"Big Data and Official Statistics in Africa – Maximising the Opportunities" webinar was organized by the International Association for Official Statistics and International Association for Official Statistics Nigeria Group, with the support of the International Statistical Institute, on 6 October 2022. The webinar aimed to promote the practical use of big data in African official statistics, including in monitoring SDG indicators, and providing timely and granular insights to support decision makers. The target audience of the webinar included NSOs, official statisticians, official data users, data producers, research institutes and academics. Along with the presentations, the webinar provided an opportunity for discussion with the speakers from different regions of the world.

Speakers:

Dr. Misha Belkindas, IAOS President/Chair

Dr. Osuolale Peter Popoola, IAOS African Representative

Dr. Carlo Vaccari, ISTAT Italy

Oliver Chinganya, Director, African Center for Statistics

Dr. Ronald Jansen, Assistant Director, United Nations Statistics Division

Dr. Aliyu Usman, IAOS Nigeria

Dr. Lisa Grace S. Bersales, IAOS Executive Committee Member

Read the presentations from the webinar below:

Dr. Osuolale Peter Popoola

Dr. Carlo Vaccari

Oliver Chinganya

Dr. Ronald Jansen

Dr. Aliyu Usman

Dr. Lisa Grace S. Bersales

Watch the video recording here

IAOS - Gallup Webinar to discuss "Blind Spot: The Global Rise of Unhappiness and How Leaders Missed It" Book by Gallup CEO Jon Clifton

Watch the video recording: https://vimeo.com/user114891518/isi-iaos-sept2022 

IAOS - World Bank Event “Building strong Integrated National Data Systems to transform people’s lives” - June 15, 2022

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, on June 15, 2022, the World Bank’s Development Data Group organized a virtual seminar in collaboration with the International Association for Official Statistics (IAOS). Bringing together a diverse group of discussants, the session focused on building an INDS and the critical role NSOs can play in this process, which the WDR2021 extensively discusses.

Speakers:

• Dr. Misha Belkindas (chair): President, IAOS; Managing Director, ODW Consulting; co-founder and board member of Open Data Watch; former Manager, World Bank’s Development Data Group
• Prof. Paul Cheung (discussant): Director of Asia Competitiveness Institute, National University of Singapore; former Professor of Social Policy and Analytics, National University of Singapore; former Director, UNSD; former Chief Statistician, Government of Singapore
• Mr. Andrew Rzepa (discussant): Partner and Executive Director of UN Partnerships, Gallup 
• Dr. Albina Chuwa (discussant): Director General, National Bureau of Statistics, Tanzania
• Mr. Craig Hammer (discussant): Program Manager, World Bank’s Development Data Group
• Ms. Malarvizhi Veerappan (WDR2021 presenter): Manager, World Development Report 2021 | Senior Data Scientist, World Bank’s Development Data Group

Watch the video recording: IAOS - World Bank Event “Building strong Integrated National Data Systems to transform people’s lives”

UN Statistical Commission 2022: Side Event “Ethics, trust, governance and use of data: Enhancing Official Statistics Capacity to address these issues” - 8 February 2022

This side event hosted by the IAOS at the UNSC 53rd Session on February 8, 2022 provided an opportunity to explore issues of ethics, trust, governance and use of data and reflect on the Association’s proposal to create a small reflection group to give more prominence and focus to these issues. 

Speakers:

- Misha Belkindas, IAOS President
- Martine Durand, Retired OECD Chief Statistician, Member of the French Statistical Authority
- Jan Robert Suesser, Member of IAOS Executive Committee and Member of ISI Advisory Board on Ethics
- Walter Radermacher, Retired Director-General, Eurostat, President of Federation of European National Statistical Societies, Chair of ISI Advisory Board on Ethics
- Gemma Van Halderen, Member of IAOS Executive Committee and Focal Point for IAOS Young Statisticians Prize

Read the presentations from the side event below:

• Martine Durand and Jan Robert Suesser
• Walter Radermacher
• Gemma Van Halderen

Watch the video recording: UNSC 2022 Side Event “Ethics, trust, governance and use of data: Enhancing Official Statistics Capacity to address these issues”

Writing manuscripts for Official Statistics journals: Guidelines for practitioners and researchers - 8-15 February 2022

Location: Register for free

The workshop will be held via GoToWebinar in three separate sessions: 

• Session 1: 8 February 2022,     3.00–5.00 PM (CET)
• Session 2: 10 February 2022,   3.00–5.00 PM (CET)
• Session 3: 15 February 2022,   3.00–5.00 PM (CET)

Under the auspices of the ISI, the Statistical Journal of the IAOS (IAOS),  The Survey Statistician (IASS), Journal of Official Statistics (JOS, Statistics Sweden), Survey Methodology (SMJ, Statistics Canada), IOS Press and Wiley are organizing a workshop comprising three separate webinars of two hours each.  

Presenters at the workshop are the Chief Editors (or former Chief Editors) of the journals involved, as well as experienced and successful authors and representatives from the publishers. The detailed programme can be found below.

Target group

The workshop is intended for Official Statisticians and academics (from all over the world) with interest in preparing a submission of a manuscript to a refereed international journal in the field of statistics. The workshop language will be English. 

Requirements of the participants

Working knowledge of the English language.
Involved in the preparation or with an interest to prepare manuscripts for submission to a refereed international journal in the field of Official Statistics.
Access to internet to follow the webinars. (Windows, Mac)

Objective of the workshop

The objective of this workshop is to prepare Official Statisticians and researchers to draft and submit manuscripts to Official Statistics journals. The workshop focuses on manuscript drafting and structuring skills as well as on anticipating  the knowledge level and expectations of the audiences and on organizing and preparing a manuscript for submission to a journal in the field of Official Statistics.

How to register

Participants are invited to register using the registration link. The workshop is offered free of charge.

Certificate of Attendance

After successful participation in the workshop, participants will be awarded with a Certificate of Attendance by the ISI. Successful participation is defined as having participated in at least 70% of the duration of each of the three webinars.

Workshop Programme

Session 1: 8 February 2022
3.00-5.00 PM (CET) Check your own timezone.

• A word of welcome by Stephen Penneck (President of the ISI)
• Introduction to the organization and content of the workshop — Pieter Everaers (SJIAOS)
• Why, how and for whom to draft a manuscript? — Steve Raywood (Wiley)
• The overall structure of a manuscript — Wesley Yung (Statistics Canada)
• Some practical examples of types of manuscripts — Denise Britz do Nascimento Silva (IBGE, Brazil)
• Closing of first session and introduction to exercises A and B — Pieter Everaers (SJIAOS)

Session 2: 10 February 2022
3.00-5.00 PM (CET) Check your own timezone.

• Recapitulation of Session 1 — Ingegerd Jansson (Statistics Sweden)
• Outcomes of exercise A — Pieter Everaers (SJIAOS)/Peter de Jong (IOS Press)
• Outcomes and reflection on exercise B — Wesley Yung (Statistics Canada)
• How to restrict to the necessary — Denise Britz do Nascimento Silva (IBGE, Brazil)
• Working efficiently in structuring and drafting — Steve MacFeely  (WHO)
• Closing of the second session and introduction to exercise C — Ingegerd Jansson (Statistics Sweden)

Session 3: 15 February 2022
3.00-5.00 PM (CET) Check your own timezone.

• Recapitulation of the second session — Wesley Yung (Statistics Canada)
• Typical structure of a manuscript — Steve Raywood (Wiley)
• Submission, review and revision from the content perspective — Ingegerd Jansson (Statistics Sweden)/Pieter Everaers (SJIAOS)
• Submission, review and revision from the technical perspective — Kim Willems (IOS Press)/Steve Raywood (Wiley)
• Young Statisticians Awards — Gemma van Halderen (ABS, Australia)
• Closing of the third session and the workshop — Wesley Yung (Statistics Canada)/Pieter Everaers (SJIAOS)

Statistical linkage of multiple disparate data sources with an application to estimate COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy rates for small areas - 15 November 2021

Co-sponsored by the International Association for Official Statistics (IAOS) and ASA Washington Statistical Society, speakers are:

Partha Lahiri 
Professor and Director, Joint Program in Survey Methodology
Professor, Department of Mathematics
University of Maryland, College Park

Abstract: 

The greater accessibility of administrative and Big Data and advances in technology are now providing new opportunities for researchers to solve a wide range of problems that would not be possible using a single data source. However, these databases are often unstructured and are available in disparate forms, making data linkages quite challenging. There is, therefore, a growing need to develop innovative statistical data linkage tools to link such complex multiple data sets. In this talk, we will focus on one important application of statistical data linkage to estimate small area proportions. We first present our general small area estimation (SAE) methodology. We then apply the proposed methodology to estimate vaccine hesitancy rates for the US states and the District of Columbia (small areas). We use data from two different surveys -- one probability survey representing the entire adult US population and the other a non-probability survey representing only active adult Facebook users -- and Census Bureau estimates of adult population counts at granular levels along with data from an independent COVID-19 data reporting website. The proposed SAE methodology could potentially help public policymakers target geographical areas for vaccination, public health campaigns and vaccine distribution. This talk is based on collaborative research with Professor’s Lahiri doctoral student Soumojit Das.

About the speaker:

Partha Lahiri is a Professor in the Joint Program in Survey Methodology (JPSM) and in the Department of Mathematics at the University of Maryland, College. He is a Fellow of the American Statistical Association and the Institute of Mathematical Statistics and an elected member of the International Statistical Institute. Professor Lahiri is the recipient of the 2020 SAE award for his outstanding contribution to the research, application, and education of small area estimation (SAE).

The role of National Statistical Offices in society and why professional independence is its foundation - 29 June 2021 

Hosted by INEGI, ISI and IAOS, speakers are:

• Julio Santaella Castell, President of INEGI
• Mario Palma Rojo, former IAOS President and former Governing Board of INEGI
• Hermann Habermann, former US Chief Statistician and UNSD Director
• John Pullinger, IAOS President and former UK National Statistician
• Misha Belkindas, founder of Open Data Watch and IAOS President-Elect

Moderator:

• Angela Me, Chief of Research and Trend Analysis Branch, UN Office on Drugs and Crime

This event will be hosted in Microsoft Teams and you can register to attend via this link.

Mario Palmer will also present his new book 'Why INEGI? The saga of a Mexican institution in search of the truth'.

Download a copy of Mario's e-book via this link. 

  

More on Misuse of Statistics: time to speak out - 22 February 2021

This event is a call to action at the national, regional and global level: where there is misuse of statistics it is time to speak out. The event will build on the webinar hosted by the International Association for Official Statistics (IAOS) on 6 October 2020. 

The aim is to examine the issues raised from diverse perspectives and propose solutions to an issue that matters greatly to all members of the Statistical Commission and is relevant to many of the items on the agenda for the 52^nd meeting. A number of papers on this topic will also be published in the Statistical Journal.

The webinar has taken place on 22^nd February 2021. An open debate will also be live from the day of the event on www.officialstatistics.com. 

You can read the papers:

• Andreas Georgiou
• Regina Ammicht Quinn
• Jennifer Saul
• Martine Durand

J

 

IAOS and IASS Joint webinar to celebrate World Statistics Day: On the importance to Society of High Quality Public Statistics - 5 November

Speakers: Dr. Walter J. Radermacher, Eric Rancourt.

Watch the video recording:  Joint IAOS-IASS Webinar to Celebrate World Statistics Day

Read the papers:

• Eric Rancourt

 

Eurostat and SCORUS: Regional and local statistics for more informed policy making - 26 - 27 October 2020

Speakers: L. Franconi, M. Mantuano, D. Ichim, Italian National Institute of Statistics. K. Loik, Statistics Estonia. V. Angelova, Statistics Bulgaria. J.Gaffuri, Eurostat. C. Ozguzel, OECD. A. Onnerfors, Eurostat. M. Diaz Ramirez, OECD. M. Kamphorst and J. Van der Valk, CBS.

You can view the presentations from the webinar here.

 

New World Order and Official Statistics in Nigeria - 22 October 2020

Speakers: Prof. O. E. Olubusoye, Dr Pieter Everaers, Dr Iyabode F. Oyenuga and Prof. D. A. Agunbiade

Watch the video recording New World Order and Official Statistics.

Read the papers:

• Osuolale Peter Popoola, PhD (Introduction) 
• Osuolale Peter Popoola, PhD 
• Dr Iyabode F. Oyenuga
• Prof. O. E. Olubusoye
• Prof. D. A. Agunbiade
• Dr Pieter Everaers 

Misuse of Statistics: Time to Speak Out - 6 October 2020

Speakers:
Ed Humperson, Director General, Office for Statistics Regulation, UK with panellists Martine Durand, Pali Lehohla, Andreas Georgiou and Hernan Munoz

Watch the video recording Misuse of Statistics - Time to Speak Out.

You can also have a look at the presentations:

• John Pullinger
• Martine Durand
• Ed Humpherson
• Pali Lehohla
• Hernán Muñoz
• Andreas V Georgiou

Young Statisticians' Prize

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Published: Thursday, 02 July 2020 10:12

2023 IAOS Prize for Young Statisticians

Calling all Young Official Statisticians
Win a trip to an international statistical conference

The International Association for Official Statistics (IAOS) is pleased to announce the launch of the 2023 IAOS Young Statisticians Prize. This international prize encourages young statisticians to take an active interest in official statistics and is awarded for the best paper in the field of official statistics written by a young statistician.

In addition to the monetary prizes, the first-place winner(s) receive travel funds to present their paper at an international conference. Details of the conference will be decided in conjunction with the winner and may include the 2023 ISI World Statistics Congress being held in Ottawa, Canada in July 2023.

Submissions should address and propose solutions to pressing methodological or strategic issues in the area of official statistics at the regional, national or international level, be no more than 4,000 words, be submitted in English and should not have been previously presented in a public forum or published. A maximum of three co-authors is allowed for each submission and an author can participate in only one submission.

An international panel will judge submissions based on the following criteria:

• Scientific and/or strategic merit
• Originality
• Applicability of the ideas in the practice of statistical organizations, and
• Quality of the exposition

The 2020 prize winner, Ms. Kenza Sallier, shared her tips on preparing a winning submission in this presentation. Her presentation is recommended for viewing. 

Papers must be submitted before 11:59 pm (UTC) on 10 February 2023.

The decision of the panel will be final. Prizes will only be awarded if papers of significant quality are submitted.

The author(s) of the best paper will be awarded:

• A cash prize valued at €1,500 (divided among co-authors if applicable)
• An opportunity to present the paper at a mutually agreed international statistical conference, with
  airfare and hotel accommodation provided (for only one author in situations of co-authorship)
• Two years of IAOS membership
• A certificate of award from the IAOS acknowledging success in this competition.

Prizes may also be awarded to those in second and third place:

• 2nd  Place - A cash prize valued at €1000, 2 years of IAOS membership, and a certificate
• 3rd  Place - A cash prize valued at €500, 2 years of IAOS membership, and a certificate

A prize will also be awarded to the best paper from a developing country:

• Best paper – honorable mention, 2 years of IAOS membership, and a certificate.

Prize winning papers will be considered for publication in the Statistical Journal of the IAOS.

To be eligible, authors (and co-authors) must:

• Be under the age of 35 on 10 February 2023 and
• Be employed[1] by an official statistical organization[2] as at 10 February 2023

Submissions must comprise a maximum of 4,000 words (including abstract, titles and references) plus the filled-in submission template plus a cover page that must
include:

• A line that it is a “Submission for the 2023 IAOS Prize for Young Statisticians”
• The title of the paper
• The name(s), prefix(s), job title(s), full date(s) of birth, age(s) and e-mail addresses of the author(s)
• The name(s) of the employing official statistical agency(ies)
• An abstract of no more than 15 lines.

Any material beyond the core text of the paper, such as table of contents, references, appendices, tables, and graphs, must be contained within the maximum of 4,000 words. Any submission exceeding 4,000 words plus cover page will be disqualified.

Please submit papers, in MS Word or compatible format[3] to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Guidelines for papers

Submission template

You may also submit questions you have about the competition to the e-mail address above.

IAOS Young Statisticians Prize Poster

2023 IAOS Young Statisticians Prize Poster English

2023 IAOS Young Statisticians Prize Poster Chinese

2023 IAOS Young Statisticians Prize Poster Russian

[1] A National or International Statistical Organization or the Statistics Department of a Central Bank, Ministry or Regional or Local Government in a decentralized National Statistical System or non-statistical international organization.

[2] Full-time, part-time, or contractual employees or interns are eligible and employees or interns who also teach or study on a part-time basis are eligible. Professional consultants or members of the teaching profession carrying out a contract with the NSO agency are not eligible.

[3] In Times New Roman (size 12) font, with side, top, and bottom margins of 1 inch (25.4 millimeters).

2022 IAOS Prize for Young Statisticians

The International Association for Official Statistics (IAOS) is pleased to announce the results of the 2022 IAOS Young Statisticians Prize. Once again, the standard was very high and we would like to thank all those who entered. 

The winner will present their paper at a mutually agreed international conference. Winning papers are also eligible to be published in a future issue of the SJIAOS.

The IAOS would like to congratulate the winners and thank all entrants. We also thank the International Judging panel for their efforts. 

The three winning papers and their authors are: 

1. Dr. Erin Lundy (Statistics Canada): Predicting the quality and evaluating the use of administrative data for the 2021 Canadian Census of Population
   
   
2. Mr. Juan Carlos Galvez Sainz de Cueto, Mr. Jorge Fernandez Calatrava and Mr. Lasai Barrenada Taleb (Statistics Spain): Timeliness reduction on industrial turnover index based on machine learning algorithms
   
   
3. Dr. Andreea Luisa Erciulescu (Westat, USA): Statistical data integration models to reconcile health official statistics 

The special commendation for a paper from a developing nation is: 

Ms. Atika Nashirah Hasyyati (Badan Pusat Statistik – Statistics Indonesia): Imputation for subsampling in Indonesian National Socioeconomic Survey 

Our congratulations to Statistics Canada for winning first place for the third year in a row, to BPS-Indonesia for their second special commendation, and to Statistics Spain and Westat for their first winning submissions.

2021 IAOS Prize for Young Statisticians

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Published: Friday, 04 September 2020 08:13

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2021 IAOS Young Statisticians Prize

Announcement of Competition

Calling all Young Official Statisticians
Win a trip to an international statistical conference

The International Association for Official Statistics (IAOS) is pleased to announce the launch of the 2021 IAOS Young Statisticians Prize. This international prize, which is designed to encourage more young statisticians to take an active interest in official statistics, is awarded for the best paper in the field of official statistics written by a young statistician.

In addition to the monetary prizes, the first-place winner will receive travel funds to present the paper at an international conference. Due to COVID-19, details of the conference will be decided in conjunction with the winner and may include the IAOS Conference which will be held in Livingstone, Zambia, in 2021 (rescheduled from 2020) or a 2021 ISI World Statistics Congress Satellite Conference in memory of Fred Smith and Chris Skinner being held in Southampton, UK, 8-10 July 2021.

We encourage submitters to address and propose solutions to pressing methodological or strategic issues in the area of official statistics at the regional, national or international level. The paper must be no more than 4,000 words, be submitted in English, and should not have been previously presented in a public forum or published. An international panel will judge the papers based on the following criteria:

• Scientific and/or strategic merit
• Originality
• Applicability of the ideas in the practice of statistical organizations
• Quality of the exposition.

Papers must be submitted before 11:59pm (UTC) on 12 February 2021.

The decision of the panel will be final. Prizes will only be awarded if papers of significant quality are submitted.

A maximum of three co-authors is allowed for a paper. An author can participate in only one paper.

The author(s) of the best paper will be awarded:

• A cash prize valued at €1,500 (divided among co-authors if applicable)
• An opportunity to present the paper at a session at a mutually agreed international statistical conference, with airfare and hotel accommodation provided (for only one author in situations of co-authorship)
• Two years of IAOS membership
• A certificate of award from the IAOS acknowledging success in this competition.

Prizes may also be awarded to those in second and third place:

• 2^ndPlace - A cash prize valued at €1000, 2 years of IAOS membership, and a certificate
• 3^rdPlace - A cash prize valued at €500, 2 years of IAOS membership, and a certificate

A prize will also be award to the best paper from a developing country:

• Best paper – honorable mention, 2 years of IAOS membership, and a certificate.

Prize winning papers will be considered for publication in the Statistical Journal of the IAOS.

To be eligible, authors (and co-authors) must:

• Be under the age of 35 on 12 February 2021 and
• Be employed(1) by an official statistical organization(2) as at 12 February 2021

Submissions(3) must comprise a maximum of 4,000 words (including abstract, titles and references) plus the filled-in submission template plus a cover page that must include:

• A line that it is a “Submission for the 2021 IAOS Prize for Young Statisticians”
• The title of the paper
• The name(s), prefix(s), job title(s), full date(s) of birth, age(s) and e-mail addresses of the author(s)
• The name(s) of the employing official statistical agency(ies)
• An abstract of no more than 15 lines.

Any material beyond the core text of the paper, such as table of contents, references, appendices, tables, and graphs, must be contained within the maximum of 4,000 words. Any submission exceeding 4,000 words plus cover page will be disqualified.

Please submit papers, in MS Word or compatible format to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

guidelines

Submission template

More information may be found here.
You may also submit questions you have about the competition to the e-mail address above.

^{1. Full-time, part-time, or contractual employees or interns are eligible and an NSOs employee who also teaches or studies on a part-time basis is eligible. Professional consultants or members of the teaching profession carrying out a contract with the NSO agency are not eligible.}

^{2. A National or International Statistical Organization, the Statistics Department of a Central Bank or the Statistics Department of a Ministry or Regional or Local Government in a decentralized National Statistical System.} 

^{3. In Times New Roman (size 12) font, with side, top, and bottom margins of 1 inch (25.4 millimeters).}

IAOS Members Newsletter November 2019

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Published: Friday, 08 November 2019 12:38

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President’s message, November 2019

Dear IAOS Members

I have been enjoying getting to know lots more people over the last month. The more I see, the more impressed I am with what is going on in our network. I can also more clearly see the potential for the official statistics community to have a stronger voice and greater impact for public good in countries around the world.

The Young Statistician Prize 2020 is well underway. Please reach out to your networks and encourage submissions. This year we have introduced a new category of Honourable Mention for an author from a developing country. We have also brought the submission date forward to 30 November in order to make announcements ahead of the 2020 Conference in Zambia. So please, if you haven’t put in a submission yet, get writing soon.

We have also announced the call for papers for the 2020 conference.  (https://www.iaos-isi.org/index.php/conferences)

The conference Better Lives 2030: Mobilising the power of data for Africa and the world -17^th IAOS Conference/ 1^st ISI Regional Statistics Conference for Africa, Hosted by the Zambia Statistics Agency will take place at the Avani Hotel, Livingstone, Zambia, 19-21 May 2020.  Proposals for sessions, papers as well as events before and after the conference close on 31 December 2019.

Members will also be interested to read these attached two pieces about Andreas Georgiou. The first, from the American Statistical Association (https://www.amstat.org/asa/News/Eight-Years-of-Government-Persecution-of-Greek-Statistician.aspx ), updates on eight years of persecution of Andreas and the second, by Miranda Xafa in World Economics (https://www.worldeconomics.com/Files/Xafa.pdf ), gives a history of Andreas’ plight. An event hosted by the ICAEW featuring Andreas (and Ed Humpherson from the UK) is also worth a look (https://audioboom.com/posts/7379312-350m-truth-lies-and-numbers ).

In my last message I mentioned four events I was due to attend. The first, the Bloomberg Data for Good Exchange (DG4X) (https://www.bloomberg.com/lp/d4gx/ ), was an inspiring gathering of mainly private sector data scientists keen to work on public good projects. Michael Bloomberg’s influence as former Mayor of New York was clear through a number of excellent project case studies featuring cities from around the world. 

The second event was the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data Board meeting ( www.data4sdgs.org ). We discussed how best the Partnership can scale its impact now it has become well established. Learning from the very positive developments in official statistics in Ghana provided an excellent touch point for our discussion.

 The third event was meetings with Stefan Schweinfest, Director of the United Nations Statistics Division and two of his Branch Heads Francesca Perucci and Ronald Jansen (Ronald is also an IAOS EXCO member). They are all keen to build links with our community and I discussed with them opportunities coming up, including through our conference next year.

 The fourth event was the conference on Valuing Statistics hosted by the United Kingdom. This event was about taking the conclusions of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) report (www.unece.org/index.php?id=51139 ) and turning them into concrete actions. I used the occasion to set out the important role played by the IAOS.

As well as these events I met Roger Taylor, the Chief Executive of the United Kingdom’s new Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation ( https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/centre-for-data-ethics-and-innovation ). Roger was interested to explore the role of the National Statistical Office in an ethical data ecosystem.

 Finally, I was a speaker at the PARIS21 Cross-Regional Forum ( https://paris21.org/news-center/events/cross-regional-forum-2019 ) which has been focused on the issue of trust in Official Statistics. There was a super line up of speakers to help delegates get creative and inspired to act. PARIS21 launched their Trust Initiative at the event (https://trustinitiative2020.paris21.org/ ). Do consider whether you want to apply.

 In the weeks ahead, following a meeting of EXCO, I will be visiting our colleagues at the Zambia CSO to help take forward planning for our conference and also attending the ISI/IFC meeting on Data Governance in Tunis.

If you have some other opportunities to spread the word about the IAOS, or have information to share with others interested in official statistics, contact me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

John Pullinger

IAOS President

November 2019