Dubai - 22/10/2018 A delegation from the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS), headed by H.E. Ms. Ola Awad, President of PCBS, is participating in the second United Nations World Data Forum during the period 21-25/10/2018 in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates. The delegation will also participate in the twelfth meeting of the United Nations High-Level Group for Partnership, Coordination and Capacity Building for the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development which will be held on the margins of the WDF as Palestine represents the Arab region along with Morocco and Iraq.

The WDF is organized by the United Nations High-Level Group for Partnership, Coordination and Capacity Building for the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development under the direction and supervision of the United Nations Statistical Commission and in coordination with the UN Member States and international partners.

H.E. Ms. Awad highlighted the importance of conducting such event in the Arab region as a way of showing the commitment of Arab countries and Arab leaders in supporting the statistical efforts to ensure making decisions based on high quality data towards the implementation of the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda.

H.E. Ms. Awad thanked the United Arab Emirates through the Federal Competitiveness and Statistics Authority for hosting this international event, which is attended by more than 1500 people including experts and specialists in the field of statistics, spatial information and modern technology along with the participation of many heads of statistical agencies, representatives of the global statistical community and United Nations Organizations as well as researchers, academics, planners, decision and policy makers, representatives of civil society and the private sector working in various fields in addition to media of all its kinds which covered the WDF activities.

H.E. Ms. Awad stated that the WDF will discuss six main thematic areas covering a wide range of topics including: developing new methodologies for capacity building and providing statistics from different sources, creating new ways of providing statistics in unconventional ways, emphasizing that no one is left behind through focusing on marginalized and vulnerable groups, linking statistics to reality and raising awareness of the importance of statistics, in addition to using statistics in policy and decision-making through the improvement and development of communication means and techniques.