Amman, Jordan 24-28 June 2012

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in collaboration with the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) and the Arab Institute of Training and Research in Statistics (AITRS), organized a Regional Workshop on Linking Population Censuses with Agricultural Censuses for the Near East.

Purpose
The workshop focused on training participants on Linking Population and Housing Censuses with Agricultural Censuses based on the FAO/UNFPA publication Guidelines for linking population and housing censuses with agricultural censuses: with selected country practices and discussion of regional issues relevant to integrating agriculture into Population and Housing Censuses in the Near East region. The objective of the workshop was to demonstrate the gains from linkage and how to carry this out integration of censuses and to open channels for further coordination in integration of the two censuses.

Integration of agricultural censuses with population and housing censuses is advocated by the FAO World Programme for the Census of Agriculture 2010 (WCA 2010) and the Global Strategy to Improve of Agricultural and Rural Statistics promoted jointly by the FAO and World Bank. The teaching method included lectures, practical exercises and group activities.

Participants
Participants from 20 countries, viz., Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, UAE and Yemen attended the workshop. The participants were professional statisticians working in the areas of agricultural censuses and surveys on one hand, and population and housing censuses on the other hand. They are expected to be involved in designing an agricultural census or a population and housing census in their respective countries in the coming years.

Reference documents