Presentation at the United Nations Regional Seminar on

Presentation at the United Nations Regional Seminar on Census Data Dissemination and Spatial Analysis, Bangkok, 5 -8 October 2010 Christophe Lefranc UNFPA, Asia and the Pacific Regional Office, Bangkok

What UNFPA does • Work of UNFPA guided by 2 international frameworks: – Programme of Action adopted at the International Conference of Population and Development (ICPD, Cairo, 1994) – Millenium Development Goals (MDGs) • 3 core areas of focus for UNFPA: – Sexual and reproductive health – Gender equality and women’s empowerment – Population and development strategies

Population and development • Aim to integrate population issues into sustainable human development processes and to examine the impact of development processes on population variables • Areas of focus include migration, urbanization, ageing, climate change • National governments need adequate information on population dynamics and trends to design and manage sound policies • UNFPA assists countries in developing capacity in data collection and analysis, for use in formulation, planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of policies and programmes

Policy on data • “Valid, reliable, culturally relevant and internationally comparable data form the basis for policy and programme development, implementation, monitoring and evaluation. ” (Programme of action of the ICPD) • UNFPA identified as the lead agency in assisting countries in the production, maintenance and use of good population statistics

Specific actions on data • Strengthening national capacities to undertake population censuses and sample surveys • Promoting interaction among data users and data producers • Assisting in building comprehensive and reliable databases • Supporting training in statistics, demography, population and development studies

Recent actions on censuses in Asia • Long term technical assistance for census operations provided by UNFPA to the government in Bangladesh (2011 census), DPR Korea (2008 census), Pakistan (2011 census), Timor-Leste (2010 census) • Short term training support in Nepal (2011 census) • Promotion of the reflection for the organization of a census in Afghanistan

Specific actions on data dissemination • Promotion of Redatam software (developed by ECLAC) to disseminate census data in Cambodia (2008 and 1998 censuses): census micro data available online in a Redatam database which guarantees confidentiality and flexibility in addressing users’needs • Funding of participants to regional training workshops at SIAP (upcoming workshop on population census data analysis using Redatam in November)