The President of the NSI, Assoc. Prof. Atanas Atanasov, PhD participated in the 72nd plenary session of the Conference of European Statisticians (CES), which was held in the period of June 20 – 21, 2024 in Geneva, Switzerland. The event is organized by the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE).
This year, the plenary session was held jointly with the Regional Committee of the United Nations Global Geospatial Information Management for Europe (UN-GGIM Europe), which plays a leading role in determining the guidelines for the development of geospatial information. The topics of discussion during this year’s meeting included: the integration of geospatial and statistical information, the use of artificial intelligence, large language models and machine learning in the development of official statistics and geospatial data, linking data across domains and sources. Strategic directions that can be undertaken in the joint work of statistical offices and geospatial and cadastral agencies were also considered. The European statisticians also discussed the upcoming revision of the System of National Accounts, the coordination of international statistical activity in the UNECE region, the work of the High Level Group on the Modernization of official Statistics and others.
During the Conference, discussion were also held on the draft guidance on the role of national statistical offices in achieving national climate goals, guidance on the measurement of subjective poverty and an update of the Generic Statistical Information Model.
The CES is a platform for discussing key and emerging issues in the field of statistics, as well as developing methodological guidelines and recommendations for improving the national statistical offices of the countries of the UNECE region. It is attended by delegations, led by the representatives of the statistical offices of more than 60 states, as well as a number of international organization, such as the IMF, World Bank, WTO, Eurostat and the European Central Bank.
