Niamey, April 14, 2014 (ECA/SRO-WA). On May 13-15, 2014,Niger will host the United Nations Regional Workshop on Data Dissemination and Communication. With one month to go before this important meeting, the Sub-Regional Office of the ECA under the supervision of its Director, Dr. Dimitri Sanga, has set up a committee presided over by Mr. Aboubacry Demba Lom, the officer in charge of the Data Center. The mission of this committee, which works closely with the National Institute of Statistics of Niger, is to ensure that this Regional Workshop is well organized so that it will be an outstanding success.
During the course of this Workshop, renowned experts from 24 Francophone African countries, two Portuguese-speaking countries, Regional Economic Communities such as the ECOWAS, the WAEMU, the ECCAS, the CEMAC and the AMU, sub-regional data institutions, such as AFRISTAT, CILSS and the WAMA, as well as the 5 Sub-Regional Offices, will review emerging trends in approaches and technologies used in the dissemination of data and metadata. The 6 modules which will be debated during the Workshop are: emerging trends in data dissemination, strategies for data dissemination on the Web, the integration of statistics and geo-spatial information, new user requirements and needs, the modernization of high-volume statistical management systems, and the challenges and policies of the promotion and dissemination of data, and these modules will provide a basis for assessing the strategies and technologies current used by National Statistical Institutes. In addition, the Workshop will make it possible to take stock of the national capacities or challenges involved in meeting the increasing requirements of users and to identify good practices and lessons learned on the dissemination and communication of data. The creative ideas generated and the recommendations formulated by the participants at the meeting in Niamey will contribute to drafting a technical report or creating a knowledge base to determine the most efficient strategies for the dissemination of data. This knowledge base will be published on the web site of the United Nations Statistics Division.
It should be noted that this Workshop is part of a global series of workshops on data dissemination and communication with the purpose of providing a forum for sharing national practices and experiences in this field.