The Twenty-first session of the Governing Council of the UN Statistical Institute for Asia and the Pacific (SIAP), Twentieth Management Seminar for the Heads of National Statistical Offices (NSOs) in Asia and the Pacific was held

The Twenty-first session of the Governing Council of the UN Statistical Institute for Asia and the Pacific (SIAP), Twentieth Management Seminar for the Heads of National Statistical Offices (NSOs) in Asia and the Pacific, as well as a collaboration seminar organized by the Statistics Bureau of Japan and the SIAP and a forum on World Statistics Day were held in Chiba and Tokyo, Japan, on 1-4 December 2025. 

The Deputy Chairman of the State Statistical Committee of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Mr Yusif Yusifov, participated in the events. 

At the session of the Governing Council, the report on the activities of SIAP in 2025, the financial plan, the draft work plan for 2026, and other current issues were discussed. It was noted that in 2025 the main focus was directed to climate change, the System of National Accounts and social statistics, as well as trainings on artificial intelligence and machine learning, and that during January–September, a total of 27 training courses, including 16 in-person and 11 online courses organized by SIAP, ensured the participation of 4,650 persons. Information was provided on the work and financial plan for 2026, stating that, taking into account the priorities of UNESCAP and the United Nations Statistical Commission, the results of the survey on training needs of member States, and modern statistical trends, topics on register-based population census, poverty, environment, climate change, national accounts, price, energy and disaster-related statistics, big data for the Sustainable Development Goals, machine learning and artificial intelligence, data visualization, quality in statistics, data management, national strategy for the development of statistics, statistical leadership and literacy were included in the SIAP work plan. The members of the Council highly appreciated the work carried out by SIAP and approved the work and financial plan for 2026. 

After the session, the Twentieth Management Seminar for the Heads of National Statistical Offices (NSOs) in Asia and the Pacific was held. The main theme of the seminar was the strengthening of leadership and management skills in organizing relations with users of statistical data. At the seminar, country experiences were shared on meeting the data needs of government agencies, entrepreneurs, non-governmental organizations and other users of statistical data, on the efficient management of statistical products produced for this purpose and the infrastructure created, and on the identification of strategic goals, and presentations were delivered under various scenarios.

The collaboration seminar organized by the Statistics Bureau of Japan and the SIAP was dedicated to the improvement of data collection and dissemination. The main purpose of the seminar was to contribute to strengthening the engagement of national statistical offices with users of official statistical data through the sharing of experiences in this field.

After the session and seminars, a Forum on World Statistics Day was also held, organized by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications of Japan.