COHESIVELY ENHANCING CAPACITY OF ASEAN COMMUNITY STATISTICAL SYSTEM TO BE MORE RESPONSIVE TO GREATER DATA NEEDS                                                                                                                                                                           CELEBRATING 10 YEARS OF THE ASEAN COMMUNITY STATISTICAL SYSTEM

In the morning of October 23rd, 2020, the General Statistics Office (GSO) cooperated with the ASEAN Statistics Division (ASEANStats) and the ARISEplus Project to hold Launching ASAN SDG indicators baseline report and online database portal for ASEAN SDG indicators.

Attending the online launching, at Vietnam’s side, there were General Director of GSO - Dr. Nguyen Thi Huong, Deputy General Directors; Leaders and senior statisticians of units under GSO; representatives of ministries, branches, international organizations and press agencies in Hanoi. At international sides, participants were Dr. Julia Tijaja, Director of ASEAN Integration Monitoring Department, ASEAN Secretariat; Mr. Igor Driesmans, Ambassador of the European Union to ASEAN; ARISEplus project; representatives of national statistical office of ASEAN member states, the Working Group on sustainable development goal indicators (WGSDGI), the Statistics Division and some ASEAN Departments and bodies; international organizations such as UNESCAP, FAO, ILO, UNFPA, ADB, Eurostats, IMF. Mr Anang Laksono, high-level statistician of ASEANstats, was the moderator of this launching.



Delivering the remark, Ms. Nguyen Thi Huong emphasized that being chair of ASEAN for Statistics 2020, Vietnam proposed the initiative "Establishing the statistical information system on sustainable development of ASEAN” and received consensus, active participation to implement this initiative of member states. The initiative aims to contribute to establish a sustainable, uniform and consistent statistical information system; ensure to adequately provide information on monitoring and evaluation of ASEAN sustainable development; simultaneously  promote partnerships, improve capacity of member countries to collect and compile SDG indicators as well as strengthen the role of coordination of ASEANstats. With ASEANstats’ proactive, efforts of member states and the active support of ARISEplus, the baseline report and the online database of ASEAN SDGs have been developed and completed to specify the above Initiative.



Dr. Julia Tijaja stated that the ASEAN Community's vision to 2025 has complemented the UN Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development with efforts to improve the living standards of people in the ASEAN community. This is reflected in the Blueprint 2025 of the ASEAN Economic Community and Socio-Cultural Community, which is committed to achieving sustainable socio-economic development of ASEAN. Mr. Igor Driesmans appreciated the baseline report, emphasized that SDG indicators play an important role in making policies for sustainable development, green growth of member countries, and being an important tool to ensure transparency of statistical indicators.

After the opening session, participants listened to Mr. Tang Hsiu Chin, Chairman of the WGSDGI group of ASEAN, introduce the baseline report and Mr. Sueka Putra, ASEANstats, introduced the online database of ASEAN SDG indicators. The baseline report with 67 indicators and the online database portal with 134 indicators are one of commitments of the ASEAN Community Statistics System (ACSS) to provide relevant, timely, comparable statistics to serve making evidence-based policy of ASEAN member countries.

In order to improve the availability and quality of SDG indicators, ACSS committed to continue to build capacity and strengthen cooperation within the region and among ASEAN countries through the implementation of activities in accordance with strategy, priority and work plan on SDG. This is to ensure that ACSS will always grasp and understand statistical needs of relevant agencies, especially ASEAN agencies and departments.



The ceremony spent 20 minutes on discussing SDG indicators with participation of WGSDGI, ASEANstats and experts ARISEplus.

To ensure monitoring and evaluation sustainable development goals of ASEAN to 2030, Vietnam proposes a number of contents: (1) maintaining and promoting the initiative of WGSDGI; (2) member countries regularly update SDG indicators; (3) mobilize and enlist active support of international organizations, development partners, NGOs, business community and society as a whole in SDG monitoring and evaluation.


Documents related