SESRTCIC ORGANIZES A MEETING WITH NATIONAL STATISTICAL OFFICES IN OIC AFRICAN COUNTRIES

The SESRTCIC organized on 17 January 2007 a special meeting for the delegates of the African OIC member countries on the sidelines of the 2007 Africa Symposium on Statistical Development, which was held in Kigali, Rwanda, on 15-19 January 2007. Representatives of 16 member countries, namely Cameroon, Chad, Comoros, Djibouti, Egypt, Gabon, Gambia, Niger, Nigeria, Mali, Morocco, Mozambique, Somalia, Sudan, Togo and Tunisia, and the UN Economic commission for Africa (UNECA) attended theMeeting. Dr. Savaş Alpay, Director General, and Ms. Sevgi Reçberoğlu, researcher represented the Centre thereat.

During the Meeting, Dr. Alpay briefed the delegates on the mandates of the SESRTCIC in general and in the field of statistics in particular. In this context, he introduced the Centre’s new training programme on statistical capacity building in the member countries which is based on matching the needs and capacities of their respective National Statistical Institutions. For this task to be carried out in a more efficient way, the Centre requested the delegates to provide it with the necessary contact information and the training needs and capacities of their institutions through two questionnaires distributed by the SESRTCIC for this purpose. The delegates were also informed that those questionnaires could be obtained by visiting the Centre’s web site.

Also discussed were the ways and means to facilitate the participation of the member countries in the World Forum on Statistics, Knowledge and Policy which will take place in Istanbul in June 2007. In this connection, Dr. Alpay informed the delegates that the SESRTCIC is a co-organizer of the Forum of concern and that it will try, in collaboration with Islamic Development Bank, to facilitate participation from the OIC member countries by providing financial support.