39th Session of the United Nations Statistical Commission
Date: 26-29 February 2008
Venue: New York - USA -

The 39th Session of the UN Statistical Commission was held at the United Nations Headquarters, New York, on February 26-29, 2008. The Commission elected South Africa as the Chair of the Statistical Commission and Finland, Colombia, Oman and Hungary as the members of the Bureau. During the working Sessions, the Commission discussed the reports prepared by the designated institutions on employment statistics, education statistics, national accounts, tourism statistics, industrial statistics, trade statistics, health statistics, informal sector statistics and environment statistics.

Moreover, issues of collection and dissemination of statistics and standards for the exchange and sharing of data and metadata were also discussed during the working Session. Reports of three committees, Steering Committee on the Partnership in Statistics for Development in the 21st Century on statistical capacity-building, Committee for the Coordination of Statistical Activities and Committee of Experts on Environmental-Economic Accounting were presented as well. The Director General of SESRIC, Dr. Savas Alpay represented the Centre at the Session.

In his meetings with the heads of the National Statistical Organisations (NSOs) of the OIC Member Countries, Dr. Savas Alpay informed them about the training programs organised by the Centre and asked them to increase their efforts for more collaboration and cooperation on the subject. On the sidelines of the Commission meeting, Dr. Alpay also met with the Director of the Statistics Division of the IMF and the UNESCWA and the Director General of the AITRS and discussed the possibility of jointly organising a workshop on National Accounts during the third quarter of this year. He also had talks with the Director of Statistics of the World Tourism Organisation concerning the prospects of jointly organising a workshop on Tourism Statistics for the OIC Member Countries.