High-level authorities and representatives of national statistics offices from Latin American and Caribbean countries stressed today the importance of producing timely and reliable statistics for a transformative recovery with equality and called for strengthening the role of national statistical entities to tackle the challenges inflicted by the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
Participants in the virtual meeting, which will conclude tomorrow, include 33 delegations from ECLAC’s Member States and 10 associate members, along with regional representatives and representatives of the United Nations System’s agencies, funds and programs, international organizations, academia and civil society.
During the meeting’s opening ceremony, ECLAC’s Executive Secretary, Alicia Bárcena, stated that the crisis prompted by the pandemic has highlighted the importance of producing timely and reliable official statistics for monitoring the disease, identifying groups in situations of vulnerability and measuring the impact of confinement and social distancing policies on people’s living conditions, with georeferencing and data disaggregation being key to guiding and focalizing the most urgent and forward-looking actions.