Taskforce Meeting on 2010 Population and Housing Censuses
At its six session held in October 2004, the Statistical Commission called on ESCWA to form a regional taskforce to coordinate efforts in relation to the planning of next round of population and housing censuses. Later, the United Nations Statistics Division adopted in March 2005 a resolution on the 2010 World Population and Housing Census Programme, to be implemented from 2005 to 2014. The goal of the Word Programme is three fold:
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Agree on a set of accepted international principles and recommendations governing the conduct of population and housing censuses;
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Conduct a population and housing censuses at least once during the period 2005-2014;
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Disseminate census results in a timely and comprehensive manner.
In order to succeed, the regional commissions are requested to play an active role in partnership with member countries and the United Nations Statistics Division to ensure the implementation of the World Programme. In lieu of this, the Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) in collaboration with the Ministry of National Economy in Oman and the Arab Gulf Programme for United Nations Development Organizations (AGFUND) is holding a Regional Taskforce Meeting on 2010 Round of Population and Housing Censuses, in Cairo from 12 to 13 November 2005.
The taskforce will discuss emerging issues and core topics used in the collection of data related to population and housing censuses, with respect to the 2000 round censuses, and will review the standards, concepts and definitions adopted with a regional perspective. The work of the taskforce will provide an opportunity to start the planning of the next 2010 round of population and housing censuses, in particular to set the process to be used in the revision and update of the United Nations Principles and Recommendations for Population and Housing Censuses.