UN DESA’s Statistics Division is organizing a workshop on the implementation of the International Standard Classification of All Economic Activities (ISIC) Rev.4 in cooperation with the Economic and Social Commission of Western Asia (ESCWA) and the Arab Institute for Training and Research in Statistics (AITRS) on 28 September – 1 October in Amman, Jordan.

The workshop aims at assisting countries in the region and will cover the overall organization of an update process, development of national classifications, the recoding of the business register and issues of backcasting of statistical series. UN DESA’s Statistics Division will also provide direct assistance to the Companies Control Department of Jordan in the update of the business registration process, implementing ISIC Rev.4.

For more information: Calendar of events of UN DESA’s Statistics Division

Within the framework of the overall theme of the 2014 United Nations Global e-Government Forum (GeGF)  in Astana, Kazakhstan, 6-8 October, ‘Smart Governance for Sustainable Development: New Opportunities for Partnership in the Networked Society”, four interrelated sub-themes will be discussed in the workshop in order to enhance public administration capacity.

Session 1 on “Trends and Emerging Issues of Smart Government” will reflect the perspectives of international organizations on recent e-Government development trends, challenges and emerging topics; Session 2 on “Strategic Policy-Making Aspects of Implementing Smart Government” will deal with cases of leading countries on the decision making progress that Governments go through when implementing Smart Government; Session 3 on “Whole-of-Government Approach” will explore the issues that make up Business Intelligence and how governments can be enhanced with the proper implementation of Business Intelligent technologies ; Session 4 on “Open Government” will look at the importance of managing and reusing data, and how this is changing the relationship between citizens and the public sector.

For more information:

Workshop on Smart Governance for Sustainable Development: New Opportunities for Partnership in the Networked Society

The high-level International Workshop on “Developing Government and Governance Capacities for Sustainable Development” is a joint capacity-development initiative of UN DESA and UNDP, which is scheduled to take place in Yerevan, Armenia from 8 to 10 October.

The Rio+20 Outcome Document acknowledged the essential role of good governance, both at national and international levels, for sustainable development and it underscored the importance of international cooperation in addressing the persistent challenges related to sustainable development for all, particularly in developing countries. The Document also emphasized the need for enhanced capacity building for sustainable development, including the provision of much needed capacity-building for strengthening  institutional capacities and developing human resources, including training, exchange of experiences and expertise, knowledge transfer and technical assistance.

The Workshop, which targets public policy makers and other stakeholders, will endeavour to strengthen capacity of developing countries with economies in transition to shift policies toward planning public administration structures and systems in a more sustainable way, focusing on specific institutional and human resource requirements.

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The high-level International Workshop on “Developing Government and Governance Capacities for Sustainable Development”

UN DESA’s Statistics Division will host a meeting of the Technical Subgroup for the International Standard Industrial Classification of All Economic Activities (TSG-ISIC) on 14-16 October in New York.

The meeting will discuss necessary clarifications for ISIC Rev.4, such as the treatment of Factoryless Goods Producers (FGPs) in the classification, to ensure a consistent application of ISIC interpretation and application rules.

The International Standard Industrial Classification of All Economic Activities (ISIC) is the international reference classification of productive activities. Its main purpose is to provide a set of activity categories that can be utilized for the collection and reporting of statistics according to such activities. Since the adoption of the original version of ISIC in 1948, the majority of countries around the world have used ISIC as their national activity classification or have developed national classifications derived from ISIC.

ISIC has therefore provided guidance to countries in developing national activity classifications and has become an important tool for comparing statistical data on economic activities at the international level. Wide use has been made of ISIC, both nationally and internationally, in classifying data according to kind of economic activity in the fields of economic and social statistics, such as for statistics on national accounts, demography of enterprises, employment and others. In addition, ISIC is increasingly used for non-statistical purposes.

For more information: Calendar of events of UN DESA’s Statistics Division

UN DESA’s Statistics Division will conduct the Workshop on Revision 3 of Principles and Recommendations for Population and Housing Censuses and Census Data Evaluation, in collaboration with Arab Institute for Training and Research in Statistics, on 19-23 October in Amman, Jordan.

The workshop will bring together statisticians from twenty-two countries and representatives of international organizations. It aims to increase the knowledge of government statisticians on the revised international principles and recommendations for population and housing censuses;  enhance the knowledge of the staff on importance of evaluation of the quality of census data and identification of  types of errors in census data through using demographic techniques; and  improve their capability in identifying gaps and challenges in applying international standards in conducting population and housing censuses and improving the quality of data collected through the census. The workshop also aims to provide a platform for participants to share their national experiences and learn from good practices.

For more information: Calendar of events of UN DESA’s Statistics Division