United Nations Economic Commission for Europe Statistical Division Opening the Expert Group Meeting Expert Group Meeting on MDG Indicators in Central Asia Astana, Kazakhstan, 5-8 October 2009 Petteri Baer, Regional Adviser, UNECE

Petteri Baer - UNECE Statistical Division Slide Purpose of the Meeting  Purpose of the Meeting See first page of the Agenda! Learn about the issues facing the Central Asian countries in the  Production and  Use of MDG related statistical information Discuss and agree on a possibly common set of disaggregations of MDG indicators for having improved focus on vulnerable population groups Discuss indicators actual for the CA sub-region

Petteri Baer - UNECE Statistical Division Slide Focus of the Meeting  Production process of MDG Indicators  Validation process  Dissemination process  Get one or two rounds deeper on Disaggregated MDG indicators Country specific, Sub-region specific MDG.. Reconciliation between national data and data produced and published by IOs on..

Petteri Baer - UNECE Statistical Division Slide MDG Goals and Indicators  Decided on the highest level United Nations General Assembly Approved as goals by 192 countries 2000 – 2015 Now we are coming into the last 1/3  2015  MDG Indicators are part of the Reporting System of Official Statistics Rich people … Poor people Statistics - For evidence based decision making

Petteri Baer - UNECE Statistical Division Slide MDG Indicators have a strong link to Statistical Capacity Building  In fact MDG indicators should ideally be just one part of normal reporting of a comprehensive set of official statistics  A special pleasure to have this EGM hosted by the Agency of the Republic of Kazakhstan on Statistics (ARKS) ARKS great development in the last few years Dynamic leadership of Ms Anar Meshimbaeva, Mr Birlik Mendybaev, Mr Zhaslan Omarov and others

Petteri Baer - UNECE Statistical Division Slide The facilities of this EGM  Petteri: 6th visit to the ARKS, 7th visit to Kazakhstan  The venue of the meeting In the building of the Regional Office of the ARKS in Astana Capital renovation process Look at the results!  Thank you, all involved staff members of the ARKS for all arrangements you’ve done!

Petteri Baer - UNECE Statistical Division Slide Organizations represented in this EGM  List of participants All six CA / SPECA member countries National Statistical Institutes AND Line Ministries A good set of International Organizations  UNECE, UNICEF, UNDP, (UNFPA, UNSD)  WHO, ILO  Individual introduction round - soon

Petteri Baer - UNECE Statistical Division Slide The Spirit of this EGM  We all have numerous different aspects to the present situation, we face different problems and challenges in reporting MDG Indicators See Agenda: Seven Sessions on seven themes  We will allocate much time for working groups  We will learn from each other…towards conclusions  We will approach all questions with an open mind  Understanding the different backgrounds of each of us  Aiming at improved know-how on the reporting on Progress towards achieving the Millenium Development Goals

Petteri Baer - UNECE Statistical Division Slide Wise words of Samuel Johnson  “Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves or we know where we can find information upon it”  Thank you for your attention! 