As the importance of the information economy continues to grow, Governments require better statistics to assess progress in this area, evaluate current policies, and plan for the future. UNCTAD's "Training Course on Information Economy Statistics" aims to help developing countries improve their statistics on the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) by businesses and on the ICT producing sector. UNCTAD disseminates data on the information economy through its statistics portal http://unctadstat.unctad.org.
The next edition of this training course will take place from 4 to 8 November 2013 in Maputo, Mozambique. Since its pilot delivery in 2007, UNCTAD has trained 152 producers of ICT statistics from 98 countries, but so far none were Lusophone. The training is based on the UNCTAD “Manual for the Production of Statistics on the Information Economy, 2009 Revised Edition”, which was recently translated into Portuguese.
The training will be delivered to staff of national statistical offices and other institutions in charge of the production of official statistics on the information society. Participants are expected from Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, Sao Tome and Principe and Timor-Leste.
This training is part of UNCTAD's contribution to the work of the Partnership on Measuring ICT for Development to improve the availability, comparability and quality of ICT statistics.
The workshop is hosted by the National Statistical School of the Instituto Nacional de Estatistica (INE) of Mozambique. The course is organized by UNCTAD's Division on Technology and Logistics with the financial support of the Swedish International Development Agency. UNCTAD gratefully acknowledges the good offices of the African Centre for Statistics of UNECA in liaising with the Lusophone countries.
