The EU and The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) announce launching an EU grant to support the Population, Housing and establishments Census 2017

On Wednesday June 21^st 2017 Ms Ola Awad, President of PCBS, and Mr. Ralph Tarraf, European Union Representative to the West Bank and Gaza, signed a new grant awarded by the European Union over € 1.5 million to support some of the activities of the Population, Housing and Establishments Census 2017 that is undertaken by PCBS in 2017

 During a meeting held at PCBS offices in Ramallah, Ms. Ola Awad welcomed the European Union delegation and expressed her sincere gratitude and appreciation to the European Union for their continuous support to PCBS activities that highly contribute to implement the statistical programme and enhance the capacities of PCBS employees and therefore provide the necessary official statistics in various economic and social areas.

Ms. Awad also indicated that most of the grant awarded will be utilized to support the Data collection phase of the Population, Housing and Establishments Census 2017 in addition to supporting the Preliminary Results Releasing Conference in the first quarter of 2018.

 For his part, the EU Representative Ralph Tarraf stressed the importance of conducting the census and updating official statistics as means to provide decision-makers, international actors, researchers, and the general public with the basic social and economic data. Tarraf added that nowadays data and information have proven to be integral building blocks in research, development as well as in decision making.  In his remarks, Tarraf reiterated the EU’s commitment to support the PCBS as part of its state building efforts of an independent future Palestinian State.