-
Statistics Korea having MoU with the ADB
Statistics Korea having MoU with the ADB
- Building the groundwork for expanding its development cooperation activities in Asia-Pacific -
□ Commissioner Han, Hoon of Statistics Korea today signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Managing Director General Um,Woochong of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) in the ADB headquarters in Manila, Philippines, aiming to establish statistical cooperation between the two institutions.
* ADB is a multilateral development bank for the Asia and the Pacific region having been assisting its member countries for their economic and social advancement since its establishment in 1966. (68 member countries)
ㅇ Under the MoU, the two institutions agreed to work in collaboration in areas such as the development and enhancement of statistical capacities in the region, support for the use of administrative data for statistics, and technical assistance in data visualization.
□ Statistics Korea expects that this MoU with the ADB will provide momentum to expanding its Official Development Assistance (ODA) program for the development of statistics in the Asia-Pacific countries.
ㅇ It has, so far, developed the ODA projects upon receiving a request from countries, individually, which asked for Statistics Korea’s cooperation in international development. Hereafter, Statistics Korea will join forces with the ADB to jointly develop opportunities in Asia-Pacific and build statistical infrastructure in a systematic fashion.
ㅇ In the beginning, Statistics Korea and the ADB will focus on building administrative databases in the developing countries in Asia-Pacific to allow for their linkages with relevant survey data, and will further develop and provide administrative data management systems.
ㅇ Their collaborative projects will set off by targeting Mongolia, Maldives, and the Pacific Island Countries to build administrative data systems and organize activities to strengthen statistical capacities. The list of target countries will continue to grow into other countries in the region.
□ Last year, Statistics Korea made MoU with the Inter-American Development Bank aiming to strengthen statistical capacities in Latin America and the Caribbean, which was the first time it had MoU with an international financial institute. This year, it began implementing the international development cooperation activities for Colombia under this arrangement.
□ At the signing ceremony, Commissioner Han commended the signing of MoU with the ADB following the last year’s MoU with the IDB as “solid footsteps for Statistics Korea to engage with international organizations for the systematic implementation of its international development cooperation projects in the field of statistics.”
ㅇ Looking into the future, he added that “Statistics Korea will continue on and further expand statistical cooperation with the ADB to strengthen statistical capacities in the region in view of their achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).”
□ Managing Director General Um reciprocated with his remarks saying “the ADB welcomes the signing of MoU with Statistics Korea that has been pioneering statistical production with the use of administrative data.”
ㅇ He added that “the ADB will work closely with Statistics Korea to improve statistical capacities in Asia-Pacific and further develop statistical indicators in economics and climate-related issues.”
-
Statistics Korea co-organizing the Global Symposium on Low Fertility and Population Ageing with the UN Population Fund
Statistics Korea co-organizing the Global Symposium on Low Fertility and Population Ageing with the UN Population Fund
- To explore ‘demographic resilience’ for sublimating population decrease risks into an opportunity -
□ Statistics Korea (Commissioner Hoon Han) and the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) organized jointly the Global Symposium on Low Fertility and Population Ageing from November 8th to 10th at the Mondrian Hotel, Seoul, which was held under the theme of ‘building demographic resilience’.
□ The three-day symposium offered 7 session covering a wide ranging issues related to low fertility and population ageing, including those on human capital, population mobility, and gender inequality, which took the forms of topical presentations and policy discussions.
○ On its first day, in particular, the session titled ‘the roles of data to build demographic resilience featured the successful implementation of the latest Population and Housing Census in Korea as well as recent improvements and initiatives made by Statistics Korea in an effort to provide better North Korean statistics.
-
Statistics Korea co-organizing the 2022 International Seminar on Official Statistics with the UN Statistics Division
□ Statistics Korea (Commissioner Hoon Han), in cooperation with the UN Statistics Division (UNSD), organized the International Seminar on Official Statistics on November 2nd and 3rd at the Shilla Hotel, Seoul, under the theme of ‘data stewardship and the secure sharing of data’.
-
Commissioner Han of Statistics Korea attending the OECD Committee on Statistics and Statistical Policy meeting
□ Commissioner Han, Hoon of Statistics Korea attended the 19Mth Meeting of the OECD Committee on Statistics and Statistical Policy (CSSP) as the lead of the Korean delegation. The 19th meeting was held in Geneva, Switzerland on June 22nd and 23rd.
-
Commissioner Ryu Invited to IMSI Workshop to Deliver a Keynote Speech
Commissioner Ryu Invited to IMSI Workshop to Deliver a Keynote Speech
-‘Hub and Spokes Model for Governmental Data’-
□ Commissioner Keunkwan Ryu delivered his keynote address at the Private AI Workshop organized online by the Institute for Mathematical and Statistical Innovation (IMSI)* on February 7 to February 12 (between 5 a.m. and 8:40 a.m. Korean time).
* IMSI: A research institute funded by the National Science Foundation, which aims to apply mathematics and statistics to societal and scientific problems and to foster innovation
○ Under the theme of ‘Machine Learning on Encrypted Data’, the Workshop brought together many internationally recognized scholars and experts, including Vinod Vaikuntanathan of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Kristin Lauter of Facebook AI Research, and Shai Halevi of Algorand Foundation.
○ Participants at the workshop examined a range of solutions to technological challenges in applying innovative developments in machine learning and AI, with particular focus on privacy protection.
□ In his keynote speech titled ‘A Hub and Spokes Model for Governmental Statistics’, Commissioner Ryu presented the K-Statistics System currently under development by Statistics Korea (KOSTAT), in which public data are stored, linked, merged, and utilized in a safe manner. He also shared KOSTAT’s experience from a pilot project and suggested future direction for the K-Statistics System.
○ Through the K-Statistics System, data are currently being linked within the Statistics Data Centers of KOSTAT. Commissioner Ryu said the System will be employing leading edge technologies, such as homomorphic encryption, differential privacy, and synthetic data, for further enhancing its data protection mechanism. In addition, efforts are being made to revise the Statistics Act which will ensure legal grounding for the utilization of administrative data.
○ In addition, Commissioner Ryu introduced a pilot project which analyzed the survival patterns of SMEs using data linkage between KOSTAT’s statistical registers and the SMEs dataset of the Municipality of Gyeonggi-do. The pilot case attracted much attention from the participants of the workshop as it demonstrated logistic regression analysis, using linked data which remained encrypted throughout the process.
□ Commissioner Ryu concluded his remarks by sharing his prospects that the development of the K-Statistics System will boost data value for and cooperation among the government agencies, whereby it can further contribute to strengthening evidence-based policies. He added that technologies applied to the System will be shared with relevant international communities.
LINK : https://youtu.be/qlxahxBkOU8
-
Korea-Uzbekistan Conference on Statistics Cooperation
□ KOSTAT shares its 2020 census experience and advanced technologies with the State Committee of the Republic of Uzbekistan on Statistics (Goskomstat) to help the latter implement its first census in 34 years.
□ Statistics Korea held a bilateral statistical cooperation meeting via video with Goskomstat on December 14th 2021.
- The video conference was held at the request of Goskomstat which is hoping to gain experience and knowledge from KOSTAT regarding census taking ahead of its 2023 Population and Housing Census of Uzbekistan.
- Commissioner Keunkwan Ryu, the head of Statistics Korea, congratulated Uzbekistan on its 30th anniversary of independence and for planning to conduct its first census since that momentous date.
- Mr. Begalov Bakhodir Abdusalomovich, Chairman of Goskomstat, expressed his gratitude to KOSTAT for its support and continued cooperation. He believes that a lot of information will be gathered from this piolt survey, and that a great deal of positive change will take place as a result.
- Commissioner Dr. Ryu mentioned that KOSTAT has successfully conducted a “Paperless Census” using personal computers, telephones, and mobile devices, and so has dramatically reduced the burden of respondents. He pledged to share KOSTAT’s census experiences and knowledge with Goskomstat for the success of their 2023 census.
- KOSTAT and Goskomstat have agreed to maintain a close collaborative relationship through various channels.
-
Planting First Seed for the Export of Korean Statistical Infrastructure Globally
□ Commissioner Keunkwan Ryu, the head of Statistics Korea, visited New York City and Washington D.C., in the United States, to discuss strengthening partnerships in statistical cooperation between the National Statistics Office and international organizations from the 29th of November to December 3rd.
○ During the visit, he signed MoUs with the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and met with representatives of the UN Statistics Division (UNSD), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (WB).
○ He promoted the K-Statistics System which is an integrated platform that will enable data to be collected, produced and analyzed to support instantaneous decision-making in the rapidly-changing policy environment.
- He explained that the experiences gained in the development of the K-Statistic System would be shared with developing countries. This proposal earned great support from international organizations.
[MoU with UNFPA]
□ Commissioner Ryu signed the second MoU with UNFPA in New York City on November 29th, providing for cooperation between the two organizations to support population census activities in developing countries.
○ The two organizations had reached a consensus in 2016 stipulating that they would require another MoU after the successful completion of the first MoU to support statistical capacity building in developing countries and to tackle the problem of ageing populations.
○ Commissioner Ryu emphasized the importance of value creation by linking data from different sources; i.e. linking public health data with the population census data; something which has helped formulate policies to fight epidemics.
○ The government of Korea has been closely cooperating with UNFPA to secure basic population data in the event of a re-unified Korean peninsula.
- In 2020, Statistics Korea created the North Korean statistics team to consolidate the collection and dissemination of North Korean statistics and has made efforts to enhance the quality of those statistics. To this end, Statistics Korea has expressed that it is crucial for it to build and maintain close cooperation with UNFPA.
[On 29 November, Commissioner Ryu (on the right) and Ib Peterson, Deputy Executive Director of UNFPA, met at UNFPA headquarters in New York City and signed the MoU on cooperation for population census capacity building in developing countries.]
[MoU with IDB]
□ Commissioner Ryu also met with Ms. Reina Irene Mejia Chacon, the Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of the IDB on December 1st to sign the MoU to support statistical capacity building in Latin America.
○ This is the first MoU that Statistics Korea has signed with an international financial institution. So far, Statistics Korea has aided individual countries, but cooperation with the IDB will allow it to play a significant role in the regions’ development of statistical infrastructure. The regional multilateral development bank will work together with Statistics Korea to achieve various tasks.
○ Statistics Korea and the IDB have reached the mutual understanding that unconventional statistical methods would be vital in strengthening statistical capacity. They will begin by co-financing a project to support the National Administrative Department of Statistics of Colombia, which will focus on improving the use of administrative data. Statistics Korea and the IDB Trust Fund will provide approximately 1.5 billion KRW and 500 million KRW, respectively, for two years.
- They will regularly discuss how to cooperate regarding statistical capacity building in the region as needs arise.
[On 1 December, Commissioner Ryu (on the left) and Reina Irene Mejia Chacon, the Executive Vice President of the IDB met at the IDB headquarters in Washington D.C. and signed the MoU on cooperation for statistical capacity building in Latin America.]
-
Commissioner Keunkwan Ryu Took Part in an International High-level Discussion on the Advance in CRVS during and after the COVID-19 Pandemic
On 19 November, 2021, Mr. Ryu attended the ministerial roundtable session at the 2nd Ministerial Conference on CRVS hosted by United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific. Representatives from Fiji, Indonesia, Laos and the Philippines participated in this roundtable session.
Virtually held this year, the Conference has become a venue for a ministerial level discussion on CRVS in the region since 2014 when it was firstly organized with the motto “get everyone in the picture”.
This year, as the main focus of the conference was given to ‘CRVS during and after the pandemic’, Commissioner Ryu briefly shared with high-level officials from other countries at the conference Korean experience and knowledge in this area as well as the well-structured institutional arrangements for CRVS system geared by the country’s advanced information technology.
Emphasizing that Korea has not been troubling producing vital statistics due to its well-organized registration system during the pandemic, Mr. Ryu also expressed that Statistics Korea was willing to support less developed countries by providing technical assistance and capacity building training opportunities so that they would build and advance their own CRVS systems.
In addition, Commissioner Ryu introduced the K-Statistics System, Statistics Korea’s new national statistics innovation initiative, where bleeding-edge encryption technologies would enable data to be safely and efficiently collected from various sources and linked and used for timely statistical production.
-
The 18th OECD Commission on Statistics and Statistical Policy (OECD CSSP)
The commissioner Keunkwan Ryu has attended the OECD Committee on Statistics and Statistical Policy.
The commissioner took a floor and spoke about the K-Statistics System.
-
Korea-Saudi Arabia Conference on Statistics Cooperation
- Transferring media strategies and campaigns for Korea's advanced census -
□ Statistics Korea (KOSTAT) held a bilateral video conference with the Saudi Statistics Office on April 20th at 17:00 p.m. (Tue).
□ The video conference was held at the request of Statistics Korea to transfer media strategies and campaigns that were successfully used to complete the '2020 Census of Population and Housing' conducted by Saudi Arabia, ahead of the 2021 Census of Population and Housing.
- The two sides also held a video conference in July of last year under the theme of 'Korea's Registration Census' to shift the Saudi Statistics Office's Census based on administrative data.
□ The Saudi Statistics Office praised the 2020 Census conducted by Statistics Korea during the COVID-19 pandemic, declaring that the media campaign, which addressed the respondents' emotions, was an innovative attempt to open a new horizon for the promotion of information.
□ This conference delivered strategies and experiences on public relations, as well as media strategies, in order to increase response rates in areas where the Internet is difficult to access, and to promote public relations among the various classes of people.
□ The Korea-Saudi National Statistical Office promised to establish a system of continuous cooperation through various dialogue channels.
Contact
Director for International Cooperation.
E-mail : kostatint@korea.kr