(CARICOM Secretariat, Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown, Guyana) Special focus on the role of statistics at this juncture was critical to the development of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), particularly in light of the global economic and financial crisis which was adversely affecting the Region.

This view was expressed by the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Secretary-General, His Excellency Edwin Carrington at the opening of the High Level Advocacy Forum on Statistics, held on July 30 at the Trinidad Hyatt Regency, Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago.

The Forum was convened under the theme: The Urgency of Statistics: Enabling the Development in the Caribbean Community, and was geared at meeting the needs of the development of a highly effective statistical base to monitor and inform policies to mitigate the effects of the global financial and economic crisis on the Region.

It was coordinated through collaborative efforts of the CARICOM Secretariat, the Government of Trinidad and Tobago, the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS), the Standing Committee of Caribbean Statisticians (SCCS), the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Small Island Development States (UNDESA SIDS) and the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin American and the Caribbean (UNECLAC).

Secretary-General Carrington stated that the deleterious effects of the global financial and economic crisis on many regional economies - particularly on employment, key revenue earning sectors and remittances - highlighted the critical need for the development of statistical capabilities in the Community.

“Overall, the indications are that the global crisis poses both economic and social threats for the Community for sometime to come,” Mr. Carrington told the Forum which attracted more than 100 delegates.

“The mainstay of many Regional economies – tourism - has been severely affected with the concomitant loss of jobs and revenue. Remittances have declined substantially as a consequence of the unemployment situation in the metropoles and commodity prices in respect of bananas, sugar and rice have taken a downward spiral,” the Secretary-General added.

These and other alarming indicators of immigrants returning to their home countries, swelling the unemployment pool because of the grim economic conditions in their adopted countries, he said, served to increase the urgency for statistics to inform development strategies.

Mr. Carrington noted that high-quality, timely, reliable and relevant official statistics would relate not only to national income, trade and other economic features but also quality of life issues such as the incidence ad prevalence of communicable and non-communicable diseases, poverty and the status of the environment.

“It is about leaving a legacy for our future. For how can we plan for the future of our children if we do not even know the extent of the critical issues affecting them today? How can we succeed in building a sustainable region for the future?” he stated.

The High-Level Advocacy Forum on Statistics was designed to gain a higher profile for statistics and its crucial role in understanding the magnitude and effect of the global crisis and its impact on the Region; to advocate for increased and urgent support to the development of statistics in the Community; to engender improvement in the production of statistics in the national statistical systems in CARICOM; and to enable the creation of greater linkages between policy and statistics and increased use of statistics by policy-makers and other users.

A critical outcome of the meeting was also to explore the development of a monitoring framework comprising a coherent set of official statistics that are useful in providing the policy makers and analysts, with an information base to understand the nature of the current global crisis and to monitor and report on the transmission mechanisms that may give rise to the risks and vulnerabilities of the Region’s economies.

Secretary-General Carrington stated that the expected outcomes of the meeting were particularly relevant at this time, given that the recently held Heads of Government Meeting in Georgetown, Guyana had established a Special Task Force to present, among other things, a core set of proposals for going forward in confronting the economic and financial crisis. The Task Force is headed by CARICOM Chairman, His Excellency, Bharrat Jagdeo, President of Guyana and includes the Prime Ministers of Barbados, Jamaica, St. Vincent and the Grenadines and Trinidad and Tobago.

The Secretary-General noted that the success of the work of the Task Force would depend on high quality statistics that were provided in a manner that was timely, relevant and reliable.

CONTACT: piu@caricom.org