Dear Colleagues,
On 20th October this year, we celebrate the first ever World Statistics Day.
It is an historical moment for our big family of official statisticians around the
world.
On this Day, we celebrate the many achievements of official statistics and the
core values of Service, Integrity and Professionalism. This is a profession
that we can be proud of.
We can be proud of the great wealth of reliable, good quality data that are
being produced every day all over the world to inform policies, promote
changes and monitor the progress of our societies.
We can be proud of the information we continuously provide to citizens in all
countries to ensure transparency, accountability and good governance.
Statistics are crucial to economic and social development. They generate
public debate and contribute to the progress of our nations. They are
indispensable to academic research and the development of businesses and
the civil society. Statistics ultimately serve everyone in society.
We have worked hard over many decades to define and implement global
statistical standards which have resulted in high quality, comparable statistics.
For example, the Consumer Price Index was agreed to in 1925 at the Second
International Conference of Labour Statisticians. Since 1947, the UN
Statistical Commission has guided us in our work in setting the standards and
charting the path of the global statistical system.

The adoption by the UN Statistical Commission in 1994, of shared
professional values enshrined in the “Fundamental Principles of Official
Statistics” has further crystallized our professional responsibility; this is a
major achievement of the global statistical community.
A key source of official statistics is the population and housing census which
provides governments and the public with valuable data on the size, structure
and characteristics of their population. As of 1 October this year, 106
countries and areas had conducted a census in the 2010 round, with another
117 more scheduled. The increasing number of countries that are able to
carry out a census in a timely and efficient manner is one of our key
achievements. This year, 3 billion people around the world will be counted.
Our work on the System of National Accounts and the compilation of GDP
and related macroeconomic indicators offer the world a reliable system of
measuring economic production and to monitor the increasingly complex
economic transactions around the world. The 2008 revision of the System of
National Accounts was a joint effort of all the countries in the world, and a
product that we can be proud of.
Through the UN Statistical Commission, we continue to work on new
statistical frameworks in vital statistics registration, gender equity, tourism,
energy, trade, water, the environment, and many other social and economic
areas.
All these theoretical frameworks would be meaningless without the hard work,
professionalism and integrity demonstrated on a daily basis by dedicated
experts in national statistical systems and international agencies around the
world. The notion of a global professional statistical family, that transcends
political, economic and cultural differences among countries, is perhaps the
biggest achievement of all.
We recognise that the transfer of knowledge and strengthening national
statistical capacity remains a priority for everyone. The 2010 UN MDG
Summit had made it clear that improving statistical capacity is vital for
monitoring global progress. We, at the UN, are committed to assisting
countries so that every citizen in the world can rely on a well-functioning
system that regularly produces, analyses, and disseminates relevant and
quality statistics — statistics that respond to users’ needs and concerns,
statistics that can help us respond to new challenges and bring about policy
changes.
I would like to take this opportunity to recognise and thank each and every
statistician in the world for their immense contribution to the global statistical
system.
Together, anchored in our shared values of Service, Integrity and
Professionalism, we will make our profession and our statistical offices, a vital
and valued institution of the world.