Transcript Introducing UNECE Statistics

United Nations Economic Commission for Europe
Statistical Division
Data collection and the
modernisation of official statistics
Steven Vale
UNECE
[email protected]
Contents



Introducing UNECE
Modernisation and the High-level Group
How does data collection fit in?
Introducing UNECE Statistics
How do we work?

Conference of European Statisticians
•
Gathering of chief statisticians since 1947

Open to all 193 UN member countries

And international organisations
•

Eurostat, OECD, IMF, World Bank, ILO etc.
Bureau – Chief Statisticians of Canada
(chair), Austria, Finland, Turkey, UK,
Ukraine, Australia and Mexico
UNECE Statistics: Priorities



Population censuses, migration,
Millennium Development Goals
Globalisation, National Accounts,
employment, business registers
Sustainable development,
environmental accounts, climate change
 Modernisation
Why is modernisation important?
In the last 2 years more
information was created
than in the whole of the
rest of human history!
Making sense of the Data Deluge
Statistics fights back!

High Level Group for the Modernisation of
Statistical Production and Services (HLG)
•
Created by the Conference of European
Statisticians in 2010
• 10 heads of national and international statistical
organisations
The Challenges
New
competitors &
changing
expectations
Rapid changes in the
environment
Increasing cost
& difficulty of
acquiring data
Reducing
budget
Riding the big
data wave
Competition for
skilled
resources
These challenges are too big
for statistical organisations to
tackle on their own
We need to work together
HLG Vision





Stay relevant by producing new and better
products and services more tuned to the way the
world operates today
Improved processes and methods to deliver
products at minimal cost, with greater flexibility
Cooperation between organisations to improve
efficiency and effectiveness
Establish a culture for change
Statisticians with new skills and knowledge
HLG strategy for modernisation




Transform vision to reality
New sources and products
Streamlined processes
Managing organisational change to support
modernisation and collaboration
HLG strategy for modernisation




Transform vision to reality
New sources and products
Streamlined processes
Managing organisational change to support
modernisation and collaboration
Conference of European Statisticians, June
2012
How the HLG works



Meeting / teleconference every 3-4 months
Annual reports to Conference of European
Statisticians
Annual workshops with around 30 expert groups
•
•

Review progress
Agree priorities
Time-boxed projects
•
“Agile” methodology – “sprint” sessions, virtual task
teams, wikis, web conferences
Impact on data collection

New sources
•

New methods
•

Web scraping, data mining, data integration
New modes
•

Admin data, Big Data, mixed sources
Web collection, mixed mode
New tools
Governance:
A new structure to focus
on delivering change
Get involved!
Anyone is welcome to contribute!
More Information
• HLG Wiki:
http://www1.unece.org/stat/platform/display/hlgbas
• LinkedIn group “Business architecture in
statistics”