Arab Countries

The Arab Countries have shown considerable interest in working on Measuring the Progress of Arab Societies.  The United Nations Economic and Social Commission for West Asia are working with us to become the regional co-ordinator for this work.  The Arab Statistical Institute for Training and Research have also expressed an interest in becoming closely involved.   Their paper, Measuring and Fostering Progress in the Arab Societies Towards an Integration of Arab Region in the Global Initiative of Measuring Progress, is of interest.

Future events

• Read more about the Global Project on "Measuring the Progress of Societies” and the OECD 3rd World Forum in Korea, 27-30 October 2009.  (PDF format - written in Arabic)

• The Arab Institute for Training and Research in Statistics  will hold in cooperation with the General Authority for information in the Great Socialist Peoples Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, the 2nd Arab Statistical Conference under the slogan “No Development without Statistics” November 2-4, 2009 in Tripoli, Libya. Read more about the program.

Past Events

• The OECD, UN-ESCWA and PARIS 21 hosted the 4^th Arab forum on Statistical Capacity Building Conference on “Measuring the Progress of Arab Societies” May 27, 2009 in Cairo (Egypt).

• International Conference "Beyond the gap between the West and the Islamic world: A French-American Dialogue”, Paris, December 12-13 2008.  The international conference was co-organized by the French-American Foundation – France, The Middle-East-Mediterranean Chair program of Sciences Po Paris, and Foreign Policy France. It expored the grounds for developing positive relations between the West and the Islamic world, to replace hostility and resentment with a dialogue based on trust and understanding. For more details see the agenda and registration form.

• Course on Measuring the Progress of Societies, Jordan, October 25th-27th 2008
  The course was run in Jordan in collaboration with the Arab Institute for Training & Research in Statistics (AITRS),  for 22 Arab Countries (United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Tunisia, Algeria, Djibouti, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Somalia, Sudan, Iraq, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Egypt, Morocco, Mauritania, Yemen, Comoros, Jordan) in October 2008, see the agenda and presentations.  This course was target to who have an interest in producing or using measures of societal progress,  who have an interest in   increasing the use of evidence in public debate and policy making. The courses was run in a highly interactive way, with an emphasis on group work and participation rather than a reliance only on classroom teaching.
  It raised awareness around some of the challenges facing official statistics for the 21st Century.  It focused heavily on:
  • 1) Why is measuring progress important?;
  • 2) How to measure overall societal progress and/or its multiple dimensions;
  • 3) The importance of ensuring statistics are transformed into knowledge (that is turning statistical outputs into outcomes for decision-making) and how this can be done.

• Regional Conferences held in preparation of the World Forum in Istanbul, June 2007