Purpose:
The purpose of the side-event is to engage with FAO member countries in a discussion/reflection on the growing importance of improving access to high quality data, both at national and global level, for evidence-based decision-making and to monitor/report on progress towards achieving the agreed 17 Sustainable Development Goals.  The event will also provide the opportunity to raise-awareness of FAO Members of FAO’s work in Statistics,  to take the opportunity to highlight the new features and functions available in FAOSTAT with as ultimate goal to increase use and uptake of FAO  data for evidence-based decision-making. The event would be co-hosted with the Permanent Representatives of Bangladesh and Uganda.

FAOSTAT is the primary vehicle used for the dissemination of FAO’s statistical data. It is the world's largest and most comprehensive statistical database on food, agriculture, fisheries, forestry, natural resources management and nutrition. It offers free, open and easy access to over 3 million time-series and cross-sectional data for 245 countries and 35 regional areas starting from 1961. 

In 2015, the Evaluation of FAO’s contribution to Knowledge on food and agriculture included a full case-study on FAOSTAT.  The evaluation is very positive and suggests that “FAO may consider anchoring future online dissemination efforts on FAOSTAT, one of its most successful platforms”. The report also recommended that FAO pay greater attention to user needs, as well as the potential for improving ease of use. Further guidance along these same lines was also received by the Chief Statistician at a presentation on FAOSTAT made to the G77 & China Plenary Meeting in March 2016 and to the Africa Regional Group Meeting in May 2016.
In response to these emerging needs, and also taking into consideration feedback received directly from regular FAOSTAT users, the Statistics Division has been working over the past several months to improve and further enhance the FAOSTAT web site.

The event would begin with a presentation by the Chairperson of the G77 & China (the Permanent Representative of Bangladesh), offering perspective on the challenges and issues that member countries of the Regional Group face in collecting, processing, analysing and using data at the national level, as well as what their expectations are from FAO in terms of products and services to support them. This would be followed by a presentation by the FAO Secretariat providing a global view on these issues as well as a demonstration of the new features of FAOSTAT. After this, a representative of each of the 4 regions in the Regional Group will be invited to make some comments. The meeting would then end with an interactive question and answer session with the audience.  In summary, the agenda and timing would proceed as follows:

• Introduction by the Moderator, FAO Senior Manager (5 minutes)
• Presentation by the Chairperson of the G77 & China (15 minutes)
• Presentation by the FAO Statistics Division, including the screening of a short video (15 Minutes)
• Comments from four countries representing the G77 Regions (10 Minutes)
• Discussion and Feedback  (20 Minutes)

Following the event, refreshments will be served to the participants.

Responsible office:

FAO Statistics Division in collaboration with the Group of 77 and China

Languages:

English, French,  Spanish

Twitter hashtag:

#CL155;