The Jordanian capital, Amman, hosts the 11th Session of the Statistical Committee of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) on 4 and 5 February 2015 at the Kempinski Hotel. The Session is entitled “The Data Revolution for Support and Monitoring of the Post-2015 Development Agenda”. Speakers at the opening session, which kicks off at 10:00 AM tomorrow Wednesday 4 February 2015, are Acting Director-General of Economic Statistics at the Sultanate of Oman Khaled Al- Mudhaffar, Director of the ESCWA Statistics Division Juraj Reican, representing ESCWA, and ESCWA Secretary of the Commission Karim Khalil. The representative of Palestine, President of the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics and member of the Statistical Committee, Ola Awad, will chair the 11th Session of the Statistical Committee. At its 11th session, the Statistical Committee aims to consolidate cooperation between member States and other regional and international organizations active in statistics. It will consider strategic and forward-looking issues regarding the data revolution to support the implementation of the United Nations post-2015 development agenda. Heads of statistical bureaus in ESCWA member states, national technical focal points and those with expertise and interest in the discussion topics will take part in this meeting. Representatives of regional and international organizations involved in statistical work will also participate in the proceedings as observers. The Statistical Committee was established pursuant to ESCWA resolution 179 (XVI) on setting up a statistical committee within ESCWA, adopted by the United Nations Economic and Social Council in its resolution 1993/2 of 2 February 1993. The Committee was established to follow up on progress achieved by member States in developing their statistical systems; provide them with technical advice; propose training programmes and organize workshops and seminars to enhance their statistical capacity; assist them in standardizing national statistics to make them more comparable at the regional and international levels; coordinate the exchange of statistical data and information between member States and the United Nations Statistical Commission; and coordinate the statistical programmes of member States, especially in matters relating to surveys and censuses. The Statistical Committee holds its sessions biennially. ESCWA is one of the five UN regional commissions. It provides a framework for the formulation and harmonization of sectoral policies for member countries; a platform for congress and coordination; a home for expertise and knowledge, and an information observatory. ESCWA aims at supporting economic and social cooperation between the region’s countries and promoting development process in order to achieve regional integration. Libya, the Kingdom of Morocco and the Republic of Tunisia became members of ESCWA in September 2012. By this new membership, the number of ESCWA countries rose to 17, including: Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, The Sudan, The Syrian Arab Republic, The United Arab Emirates and Yemen. * *** * For more information about the meeting, kindly consult: http://www.escwa.un.org/information/meetingdetails.asp?referenceNum=3570E For your queries, kindly contact: ESCWA Communication and Information Unit (ECIU) on either of the following numbers: +961-70-993 144, +961-03-910 930, +961-76-04 64 02. Please direct your emails to: escwa-ciu@un.org Tweets and updates of ESCWA events can be found on: @ESCWACIU, and https://facebook.com/unescwa