In line with the Marrakech Action Plan for Statistics and its call for all low-income countries to have a National Strategy for the Development of Statistics (NSDS) by 2006, PARIS21 and the Statistics Division of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP) co-organised a series of four sub-regional, high-level forums on strategic planning for statistics for Asian countries, funded by a UNDP-managed Japanese trust fund.
A high-level forum for Central Asian countries was held from 17-19 May 2006 in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. The objective of the meeting was to assess the current status of strategic statistical planning in the sub-region; to identify the successes and constraints being experienced in implementing existing plans; and to consider solutions to those constraints and practical next steps.
Participants included senior data producers and users from Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, Mongolia, Russia, and Ukraine were invited as observer countries. A number of representatives from international institutions also attended.
UNESCAP and PARIS21 collaborated with the Kyrgyz National Statistical Committee, the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) and the Interstate Statistical Committee of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CISSTAT) in the organisation of the forum. UNESCAP is maintaining a website for this Forum that can be consulted here.
The other three regional forums held within the framework of this programme were:
- South Asian countries from 13-15 December 2005 in Colombo, Sri Lanka
- South-East Asian countries from 6-8 June 2006 in Bangkok, Thailand
- East and North-East Asian countries from 9-11 October 2006 in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia
