Background
The Wye City Group has been formed as a successor to the IWG.AGRI Task Force on Statistics on Rural Development and Agricultural Household Income, which had its final meeting in June 2006 following the publication of the handbook Rural Households' Livelihood and Well-being: Statistics on Rural Development and Agriculture Household Income (www.unece.org/stats/rural).
As a result of their collaboration on the handbook, statisticians and economists in national statistical offices, especially in North America, Western Europe, and in multilateral institutions have an established, shared interest in improving methods for collecting data on rural development, communities, and farm and non-farm households. Such information is becoming of increasing importance as policy for agriculture broadens, as rural issues rise up the political agenda, and as the structure of farming and rural areas evolves. For further information about background, click here.
Objectives of the Wye City Group
The city group has as its main objective the promotion of the refinement and adoption of international standards in statistics for rural areas and agriculture household incomes. Within this mandate, the city group would
- consider challenges to consistency of adoption of comparable methods of data collection across countries,
- give special focus to the application and value of the data standards in developing countries, especially as it may support the construction of indicators for the Millennium Development Goals,
- assess and explore the potential for the use of improved statistics as policy-relevant indicators and in empirical analysis of policies for farm and rural households, natural resources, and regional economic development, and
- determine the need for any changes or updating to the handbook and, if indicated, organize and execute the revision.
Second meeting focus
The second meeting of the Group will consist of four half-day sessions with a focus on issues related to the revision of the handbook Rural Households' Livelihood and Well-being: Statistics on Rural Development and Agriculture Household Income. In particular, sessions will cover emerging issues in a changing rural world and related data needs; and the use of new technological tools in rural statistics with a concern on specific characteristics at different levels of development. Each session will include a Session Organiser and Chair, an invited keynote speaker and a number of discussion papers. The papers might focus on matters such as:
What are the changing rural paradigm and corresponding emerging issues and data needs?
What results can the technological innovation and new tools achieve in rural development statistics?
What are the issues related to developing a supplement to handbook? (considering in particular country characteristics at various levels of development)
Click here to read the Detailed Program.
Further ideas for discussion papers are warmly welcome! For participation in the meeting please contact Carola Fabi (carola.fabi@fao.org, tel (+39)0657054555) or Edoardo Pizzoli (pizzoli@istat.it, tel (+39)0646733231).
Call for papers
Authors should take the Handbook as the main reference for papers of the up-coming two-day meeting. Authors are encouraged to review the Handbook and identify topics/areas to be expanded or developed. Papers should ideally form an important contribution to the handbook supplement.
Proposers should submit abstracts for papers not exceeding 500 words in English by March 8, 2009 to the relevant session organiser with copy to the following email addresses: WyeGroup2009@gmail.com and carola.fabi@fao.org.
Communications should include the title and the abstract of the paper, names of all authors, and full postal and e-mail addresses of the corresponding authors. Abstract acceptance will be communicated before March 16, 2009. Guidelines for authors and a template with standard requirements for the papers are also attached.
Registration
Click here for the Registration Form.
If you need help with your registration, please contact Françoise Sicamois (francoise.sicamois@fao.org).
Venue
The second City Group meeting is being organised by FAO in collaboration with ISTAT, and will take place at FAO Headquarters, Via delle Terme di Caracalla, Rome 00153, Italy.
Links
The Wye Group York meeting 8-9 April 2008 papers
The Wye Group Handbook - Rural Households’ Livelihood and Well-Being
Documents
Presentations
The Second Wye City Group meeting has been jointly organised
by FAO Statistics Division and ISTAT.
Many thanks to Società Italiana di Statistica (SIS) and Società
Italiana degli Economisti Agrari (SIDEA) for the wide circulation of
this event in Italian Universities and Academies.