IAOS through its various initiatives is working with stakeholders to promote the understanding and advancement of official statistics, as we all transition to the new landscape, where the official statistics operates.
SEVEN ISI ASSOCIATIONS

Since 1985

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IAOS: International Association for Official Statistics

→ About the International Association for Official Statistics

Objectives
The general aim of the International Association for Official Statistics is to promote the understanding and advancement of official statistics and related subjects, and to foster the development of effective and efficient official statistical services through international contacts among individuals and organisations, including users of official statistics as well as research institutes.

The International Association for Official Statistics through its various initiatives works with stakeholders to promote the understanding and advancement of official statistics. In this way, The International Association for Official Statistics brings together producers and users of official statistics. For example, in 2023, the 19th The International Association for Official Statistics conference and 3rd ISI regional statistics conference was held in Livingstone, Zambia. The conference was jointly organised by the International Association for Official Statistics, International Statistical Institute and ZamStats under the theme: “Better Lives 2030: mobilising the power of data for Africa and the world."
SCORUS
The International Association for Official Statistics has specific subcommittees targeting particular issues. SCORUS – the Standing Committee on Rural and Urban Statistics; and Krakow Working group.- which was set up to deal with the Use and Misuse of Statistics. These groups have separate but inter-related work programmes.

Awards and Journals

Activities such as the Young Statisticians Prize and Statistical Journal of The International Association for Official Statistics, continue to showcase new and emerging issues relevant to our community.

Governance
The International Association for Official Statistics is an Association comprised of professionals with scientific or professional interests in the field of official statistics. It is run by an Executive Committee elected for a period of two years.
Executive Committee
President: Dominik Rozkrut (Poland) (see picture)
President-Elect: Gabriela Marquez (Mexico)
Special Advisor to the President: Nancy McBeth (Oceania)

Elected Members: Lisa Grace S. Bersales (Asia) • Gary Dunnet (Oceania) • Qasem Alzoubi (Middle East and North Africa) • Nurain Olawale Adeboye (Africa)
Ex officio: Conchita Kleijweg (Director ISI, Europe)

These are supported by the following additional and invited EXCO members: Elsa Dhuli (Europe) – IAOS Representative to the ISI • Pietro Gennari (Europe) – Editor in Chief of SJIAOS • Ronald Hansen (USA) – UNSD liaison • Jurate Petrauskiene (Europe) – Programme Chair, IAOS 2024 Conference • Jan Robert Suesser (Europe) – Co-Chair, Krakow Working Group • Gemma Van Halderen (Oceania) – YSP Previous coordinator

"Official Statistics and the Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics are vital to ensuring that Everyone Counts and Everyone is Counted." — Dominic Rozkrut

→ 2023: Conferences.

19TH IAOS CONFERENCE
The 19th IAOS conference and 3rd ISI regional statistics conference, Livingstone, Zambia; April 2023. The conference was jointly organised by the IAOS, ISI and ZamStats under the theme: “Better Lives 2030: mobilising the power of data for Africa and the world. The event was a landmark for Zambia and Africa as a whole, as it was the second IAOS conference to be held in Africa and ZamStats was the first National Statistical Office (NSO) in Africa to spearhead the organisation of the conference.

With nearly 400 delegates from all over the world, and a strong representation from African National Statistical Offices, the conference delivered on the objective to promote the understanding and advancement of official statistics and related subjects. It fostered the development of effective and efficient statistical services through networking and knowledge sharing – critical to ensuring that Everyone is counted – key in turn to providing reliable data to measure the progress of the 2030 SDG targets.
The conference included specific training and networking for young statisticians from across Africa, held prior to the conference, as well as the main event. Thanks in part to support from sponsors, international delegates included representatives from African Statistical Offices, as well as various players in the Zambian National Statistical System.

UN WORLD DATA FORUM
Participation in the UN World Data Forum, April 2023.IAOS participated in the UN World Data Forum 2023, with a specific session on "Challenges to Data Privacy and Misuse" This session was an opportunity to discuss with a wider audience, many of the issues of data misuse and how through the establishment of the Krakow Group, the IAOS is working to determine how best to respond to the many burning challenges that Official Statistics face in today’s datafied societies, and in particular, expose facts of Misuse of Statistics.

→ 2023: Conferences. Webinars.

IAOS SPONSORED SESSIONS AT THE 2023 WSC
IAOS sponsored and supported many Invited Paper sessions at the 2023 WSC, covering all elements of official statistics. Each of these sessions were opportunities to promote the understanding and advancement of official statistics.

MEXICO CONFERENCE
Preparation for the 21st IAOS conference and 4th regional statistics conference to be held in Mexico in May 2024. This conference, jointly organised by the IAOS, ISI and the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI) of Mexico has the theme of Improving Decision-Making for All. The conference will take place from , 15- 17 May 2024, Mexico City, Mexico.
WEBINARS AND OTHER KNOWLEDGE SHARING ACTIVITIES

IAOS and its sub-committees – SCORUS and the Krakow Working Group organised several webinars, discussion debates and side events to relevant international meetings.

EVENTS HAVE INCLUDED:

UN Statistical Commission 2023
Side Event "Interference in Work of Official Statistics: How Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics are Helping”, February 2023. This event, composed of four chief statisticians, discussed the usefulness of the FPOS.

→ 2023: Webinars. Awards.

Krakow Working Group
A series of debates organised by the Krakow Working Group to discuss (1) the interactions and collaborations between official statistics producers and non-official data owners,(2) how to increase the engagement with and meet the needs of users, and address data and statistics misuse; and(3) whether there is a need to review/adapt ethical principles for official statistics and how best to foster data ethics.

SCORUS
Webinars on Regional Statistics, November 2023 – Communication and Innovation

These events have continued to have a strong focus on role of the UN Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics, enhancing trust in Statistics.
ANNUAL IAOS PRIZE FOR YOUNG STATISTICIAN PRIZE (YSP)
The Young Statisticians Prize encourages young statisticians to take an active interest in official statistics and is awarded for the best paper in the field of official statistics written by a young statistician. It continues to be a centrepiece of the IAOS’ offerings.

Strategic issues chosen by young statisticians in recent years have included predicting quality and evaluating the use of administrative data, classifying respondents to the Census of Population and Housing, machine learning algorithms, statistical data integration, integrating big and survey data.

A submission from Statistics Canada again won first place in 2023 (Statistics Canada also won first place in 2020, 2021 and 2022). The quality of submissions in 2023 was very high, and a joint-first place was also awarded to a submission from the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
IAOS PRIZE FOR YOUNG STATISTICIAN PRIZE
Second place went to a submission from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, with a submission from Statistics New Zealand winning third place. Special commendations for submissions from developing nations were awarded to Hong Kong, China in 2023. This is the first time Hong Kong, China has won a prize.

The four winning papers and their authors in 2023 were:

First place
Ms. Joanne Yoon (Statistics Canada): Classifying Respondent Comments from the 2021 Canadian Census of Population using Machine Learning Methods jointly with Mr. Nelson Chua and Mr. Benjamin Long (Australian Bureau of Statistics): It’s time to build a small area estimation methodology for time-to-event data.
Second place
Mr. Ryan Covey (Australian Bureau of Statistics): Integrating Big Data and Survey Data for Efficient Estimation of the Median

Third place
Dr. Alba Cervantes Loreto (Statistics New Zealand): Modelling self-identification of Māori businesses in Aotearoa New Zealand

The special commendation for paper from a developing nation was awarded to Mr. Benjamin C.H. Chan, Mr. Ian Y.C. Ng and Ms. Natalie K.P. Chung (Census and Statistics Department, Hong Kong): Anomaly Detection in Trade Declarations using Deep Learning Techniques: A Risk-assessment Approach to Identify Misclassification and Incorrect Valuation.

→ Statistical Journal.

SJIAOS

The Statistical Journal of the IAOS (SJIAOS) is key to spreading knowledge and innovation in official to the statistical community. The quarterly SJIAOS is mainly an on-line journal, supported by the SJIAOS website with pages on news, events, and the Official Statistics discussion platform, which facilitates discussions on issues relevant to Official Statistics. ( A new discussion is launched every quarter). In addition, the Journal also has its own social media account (@Officialstat1) with almost 500 followers.

2023 saw the change of Editor-in-Chief, with Pietro Gennari taking on the role on the retirement of Peter Everaers. Pietro is committed to maintaining the high-quality standards set by Peter Everaers, as well as working with the Official Statistics community to expand the authorship and audience for the SJIAOS.
The Journal tries to be both relevant and as inclusive as possible concerning the domains of statistics and the regions represented by the authors and the audience, as well as stimulating both experienced and young statisticians to submit their manuscripts. In terms of key publishing metrics, the Journal is making a major impact.

In 2022 (the latest year that data is currently available), there were nearly 100,000 views of material in the SJIAOS content library. The SJIAOS discussion platform remains also relevant to the official statistics community, with nearly 20,000 visits in 2022. However, the interest in contributions remains disappointingly low, an issue that the new Editor in Chief and the Advisory Board of the Journal are discussing.
Statistical Journal of the IAOS (SJIAOS)
In late 2023, IOS Press, the publishers of the journal since 2007, were taken over by Sage Publications. SAGE is a global academic publisher founded in 1965 that is renowned for its extensive collection of books, journals, and library resources, comprising over 1200 journals across various fields of social and behavioural science.

In the immediate future, the change in ownership is not expected to alter the good collaboration that the SJIAOS experienced with the IOS Press.
The journal relies on not just the support of authors and audience, but also the team of voluntary editors who review and help authors improve their manuscripts. 2023 also saw changes in editors.

Now over a third of all editors are women, and nearly 30% are from developing countries. These editors also perform a key role in promoting the Journal at relevant conferences and events and at the same time, soliciting new articles or proposing Special Issues (focused on specific topics).

→ Code of Conduct.

CODE OF CONDUCT AND STATUTE REVISION

Work to review the IAOS Statutes and prepare a Code of Conduct for IAOS EXCO was initiated in response to:

• Changing Dutch Legal Environment, in particular the Act on Management and Supervision of Legal Entities (MSLE)

• Changing Operating Environment within the IAOS, e.g. the establishment of the Krakow Group

A Statute Revision Working Group was established by 2021- 2023 EXCO to prepare revised Statutes and Code of Conduct (previously known as Governance Guidelines).

The working group, together with support from the ISI Permanent Office has focused on formulating a comprehensive Code of Conduct for all IAOS Executive Committee members.
This Code of Conduct aims to set out what individual members of the EXCO are required and expected to follow, the consequences of breaches as well as clarify the decision-making rights and responsibilities of each of the different types of EXCO members.

The Code of Conduct also sets out the financial procedures, as well as clarifying the legal and operational relationships between the IAOS and ISI.

The Code of Conduct is expected to be confirmed in early 2024. This will then feed into the further revision of the IAOS Statutes, last revised in 2013. The intention is to present the draft revised statutes to the 2024 IAOS General Assembly, to be held as part of the 21st IAOS conference in Mexico in May 2024.

SJIAOS and Official Statistics Platform: New Editor-in-Chief

+ 2023 saw the change of Editor-in-Chief: Pietro Gennari.

+ The Statistical Journal of the IAOS (SJIAOS) is the flagship journal of the International Association for Official Statistics.

+ The Journal is making an impact – with nearly 100,000 views of material in the SJIAOS content library.