The fourth meeting of heads of National Statistical Organisations (NSOs) of OIC member countries, inaugurated by federal secretary, Statistics Division, Pakistan, was held here from February 11 to 13, on the theme of 'capacity building'.
In the three-day meeting, papers were presented by experts from Ankara Centre (Turkey) and OIC member states on census-based measurement of poverty in Pakistan, mechanism for co-ordination, web usage in NGOs of OIC countries, needs and capacities of statistical training in Pakistan, Indonesia, Sudan etc.
According to a press release here on Saturday, speakers at the meeting included Dr Munir Ahmed, Dr Qamarul Islam, Unal Gundogan, Dr Rashid Salaria and heads of NGOs of Saudi Arabia, Oman, Indonesia and Sudan.
The meeting agreed that the capacity building process should be scientific and in a phased manner, from steps pertaining to assessment of needs, strategy training, timely surveys, adequate computerisation and efficient dissemination.
It was also maintained that statistical offices would develop networking with other institutions, sharing knowledge and experiences and launch statistical capacity building projects pertaining to the OIC region.
The meeting recommended that the NGOs provide all data required by the Ankara Centre on standardised formats, and the centre should organise more training programmes.
The Ankara Centre would provide technical assistance to policy makers in the OIC region, facing a growing demand for data on poverty. Websites of national statistical organisations would meanwhile try to achieve uniformity in structure and contents, and ensure full and free access to their databases.
Ankara Centre would also consider establishing a web-based information bank pertaining to the OIC member countries, with NGOs working as interactive channels between the producer and end-user of the data.