FAO Headquarters, Rome, Italy, 13 July 2010

Background
Supply and Utilization Accounts (SUA) and Food Balance Sheets (FBS) are among the most important statistical tools for presenting a comprehensive picture of the supply and utilization of food in a country and in the world. However, due to the complexity of the current methodology and the low response rates of member countries to FAO questionnaires, the quality of the results has been increasingly questioned and their ability to meet the growing demand for food and agricultural statistics at the global level hampered.

Purpose
The Workshop is designed to bring together a group of experienced economists, nutritionists, and statisticians from both inside and outside of FAO and to provide a forum to discuss the uses of SUA/FBS, identify strengths and weaknesses of the current compilation system, discuss alternative approaches and procedures to improve the current methodology, and to reach a consensus on how to move forward.

Programme
Within the day, there are four Sessions. The first Session introduces the current system of the SUA/FBS, assessing its strengths and weaknesses and serving as a point of reference of the following sessions. The second Session identifies the needs and requirements of the users in terms of timeliness, scope, and reliability. The third Session discusses the alternative approaches and procedures to improve the current SUA/FBS working system. The fourth Session opens to the floor for the group discussion aimed to gather the joint wits and wisdom on the future improvement of the current system of the SUA/FBS.

Mr Xiaoning Gong
Statistician
Statistics Division