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United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific
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Workshop on repackaging of population data and information held to help countries prepare for 2000 round of population censuses
Ms Ja-Kyung Yoo, Chief of the ESCAP Population Information and Communication Unit, demonstrates various ways of presenting numerical population data at the Training Workshop on Repackaging of Population Data and Information: Preparing for the 2000 Round of Population Censuses, which was held at Bangkok on 23 to 27 August 1999.
The ESCAP secretariat recently organized a training programme on he repackaging of population data and information to help developing countries in the region to prepare for the 2000 round of population censuses.
Representatives of 17 countries attended the training workshop, which was held at Bangkok from 23 to 27 August.
As part of the workshop, on 26 August a special one-day programme concerning demographic information was organized jointly by ESCAP and the International Federation of Librarians Associations (IFLA). The theme of that event was “Six Billion and Counting: Statistics for All the World’s People”
In his speech opening the repackaging workshop, Mr Nibhon Debavalya, Director of the ESCAP Population and Rural and Urban Development Division, stated that “information plays a key role in the development process”
In particular, data and information can be used for gaining support for population interventions and improving population policies and programmes.
In thanking the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) for supporting the workshop financially, the Director said: “UNFPA has long supported our work in fostering the dissemination of population data and information as a means of achieving the goals of both the Bali Declaration on Population and Sustainable Development and the ICPD Programme of Action.”
The course covered a wide range of subjects including the following: the 2000 round of censuses; identifying data and information users and needs; types of “packages”; selection of information sources; principles of technical writing, layout and design; pre-testing; dissemination in print and electronic formats; and promotion of information services.
The participants in the workshop also got “hands-on”, experience daily in preparing a model information package using the Internet and various computer software packages for the purpose.
The participants were from Cambodia, China, Fiji, India, Indonesia, Islamic Republic of Iran, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Mongolia, Myanmar, Nepal, Philippines, Republic of Korea, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Tonga and Viet Nam.