It is my great privilege to welcome each and every one of you to this morning’s Opening Ceremony for the Fourth High-Level Advocacy Forum on Statistics and to the 2024 round of CARICOM Statistics Meetings.
The Government of Belize is pleased to host this year’s round of meetings, the first time that this event has returned to our country since we last hosted in 2011. Even more so in a year during which the regional and international statistical communities celebrate a number of major milestones, including the fiftieth anniversary of the Standing Committee of Caribbean Statisticians and the sixth anniversary of the endorsement of the Regional Strategy for the Development of Statistics, as well as the thirtieth anniversary of the adoption of the United Nations Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics and the tenth anniversary of their endorsement by the United Nations General Assembly.
The Statistical Institute of Belize is equally delighted to have our colleagues, and our partners, join us in this setting, far removed from the hustle and bustle of our everyday routines, for a week of collaboration, deliberation, planning and coordination.
Today’s High-Level Advocacy Forum, as well as the week’s various meetings, is being observed under the theme “Improving Lives through Statistics, Strengthening and Innovating Together”. It provides a unique opportunity to bring together an array of high-level government officials from across the region, representatives of various international agencies, regional experts, and heads of national statistical offices, with a view to strengthening the partnerships that are among the most critical to the development of statistics in our region. More importantly, however, the relationships that we are seeking to build and revitalise in this forum are key to ensuring that the power of data is effectively harnessed to guide decisions that will bring about meaningful enhancements to the quality of life for all our people.
The value of these relationships and their potential for driving positive change is especially pronounced within our present context, in which resources are scarce but there is no scarcity of issues that require urgent intervention, especially among the most vulnerable in our populations. For our national statistical offices, this means that we are faced with an ever-increasing demand for timely data, even in the face of our own financial and human resource constraints. We at the SIB know these challenges all too well.
But we also know how much we can advance the work of statistics in our country, in collaboration with our development partners and with the support of a government that recognizes the value of our work and the data that we bring to the table. For this very reason, the past few years have been an exciting time for us in the field of official statistics in Belize, and we look forward to sharing with you, today and throughout the course of the week, the results that have been borne out of these fruitful partnerships.
The agenda for today’s forum speaks to such crucial topics as the operationalisation of CARICOM’s Regional Strategy for the Development of Statistics, the challenges we have faced in implementing it at the national level, and the importance of political commitment and an effective resource mobilization strategy to ensuring its success.
We will examine the Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics, and their continued relevance, thirty years after their adoption. And finally, we will look at how the power of technology can support improved data quality, access, and utilisation, as we consider the future of data in our region. It is our hope that we will leave here today enriched by the discussions that we will have had, and with our critical partnerships more firmly bolstered. Before I close, and although I know thanks are usually reserved for the end of the day, I take this opportunity to extend heartfelt appreciation, on behalf of the Statistical Institute of Belize, to the Government of Belize, for lending its support to this series of meetings and, even more importantly, for the support it has given to the SIB in our efforts to enhance the quality of official statistics in Belize as a tool to be used for national development.
We are also extremely thankful to the CARICOM Secretariat, for its invaluable guidance throughout our planning and preparations, as well as to all our other sponsoring partners who helped to make this week’s meetings possible.
Finally, I want to acknowledge my entire coordinating team from the SIB, some of whom are here with us this week, and some of whom are supporting us from our headquarters. I commend them for their tireless efforts in bringing together all the many moving and constantly changing parts of this event, even into the nights, over the weekend and on their birthdays. I am personally, deeply grateful for the exceptional team of people that I have the privilege to work with every day.
Ladies and gentlemen, on that note, I welcome you once again. To our international guests, I hope that you will have an opportunity this week to explore and enjoy a little bit of the environment, culture, and food that make Belize so special. I wish us all a successful High-Level Forum today, and a productive week of meetings.
Thank you
