Regional workshop for the Pacific on linking population and housing censuses with agricultural censuses

Noumea, New Caledonia, 28 May - 1 June 2012

The workshop was organized by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the Secretariat of the Pacific Community, the first ever of its kind, and in collaboration with  the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and Paris21.
 
Purpose
The workshop was based on the FAO/UNFPA Guidelines: “Linking Population and Housing with Agricultural Censuses: with selected country practices". It  brought  together both government statisticians and those in the ministries of agriculture to:
• Discuss the gains from integrated population and housing and agriculture censuses in their countries.
• Provide  information on the best methods for integration under particular country conditions.   
• Open channels for further coordination in integration of the two censuses.

Integration of agricultural censuses with population and housing censuses has been advocated by the several organizations including UNFPA, UNECA and UNECE, and the FAO World Programme for the Census of Agriculture 2010 (WCA 2010) and is in line with the Global Strategy to Improve Agricultural and Rural Statistics promoted jointly by the FAO and the World Bank.

Participants
There were 27 participants from Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji Islands, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tokelau, Tonga, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu. The workshop brought together professional statisticians working in the areas of agricultural censuses and surveys, and population and housing censuses. They are expected to be involved in designing an agricultural census or a population and housing census in their respective countries in the next round of censuses.