(Item 1 of the Agenda)
1. The Expert Consultation on Analysis and Dissemination of Census and Survey Data was organized by the Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific (RAP) of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. It was held in the premises of the FAO Regional Office in Bangkok, Thailand, from 18 to 21 July 2005. The Expert Consultation was attended by eight experts from various countries of the region. In addition, the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives and the National Statistical Office of the Government of Thailand sent three observers to the Expert Consultation.
2. The Expert Consultation was inaugurated by HE Changchui, FAO Assistant Director-General and Regional Representative for Asia and the Pacific.
3. In his opening address Mr He extended a warm welcome to the Experts and Observers on behalf of the Director-General of FAO, his colleagues at FAO and on his own behalf. He pointed out that it was FAO's firm belief that decisions on policy, strategy and programmes for food security and sustainable agriculture development should be supported by timely and reliable statistics and information and that FAO was taking the initiative to develop guidelines and caveats for countries and agencies which collect, analyse and disseminate agricultural sector data.
4. Mr He mentioned that since 1960 FAO had collected information on food and agriculture from countries and placed it into databases for processing, analysis and dissemination and that it was important for decision-makers to be able to access reliable information and to know how to carry out the right types of analysis to support the policy development, monitoring and evaluation processes, especially when those data sets had missing or incomplete values.
5. He noted that during the Expert Consultation various types of analysis procedures would be reviewed. These procedures would include analyses that could identify characteristics that lead to vulnerability to food insecurity and poverty, could assess the economic impacts of natural disasters and could assist in the development of gender profiles for rural and urban communities.
6. According to Mr He, the FAO Statistics Division was carrying out two important activities. He said that the first was the redevelopment of FAOSTAT and pointed out that it would have a country level component, CountrySTAT, designed to facilitate the organization of national data and their integration into FAOSTAT. The second activity was the preparation of the World Programme on Census of Agriculture 2010 (WCA2010). The final Programme would contain several crucial recommendations regarding the collection of data and it would stress the importance of establishing linkages between censuses and major surveys in order to reduce cost and improve efficiency and compatibility within the national statistics system.
7. In closing, Mr He encouraged the experts to provide feedback during the Expert Consultation about FAO activities in the context of analysis and dissemination of data and to participate in the discussions about the analysis procedures and the treatment of missing and incomplete data. He said that this interaction would promote better insight into the use of various types of analyses for decision-making. The full text of Mr He's speech is given in Appendix C.
