Organised by the United Nations Economic and Social Council for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP),the Committee on Statistics held its third session on 12-14 December 2012 in Bangkok, Thailand. The Committee Session was attended by 159 delegates from UNESCAP full and associate member countries and 36 representatives from 18 organisations. 9 out of the attending 35 UNESCAP member countries were also OIC member countries including Bangladesh, Indonesia, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Malaysia, Maldives, Pakistan, and Tajikistan. The Centre was represented thereat by Dr. Savas Alpay, Director General, and Mr. Atilla Karaman, Researcher.

The Session was opened by the Minister of ICT of Thailand and followed by the statements of UNESCAP Executive Secretary and UN Statistics Division Director. An election of the Bureau took place afterwards in which the delegates elected the following countries:

• Chair: Philippines
• Vice-Chairs: Mongolia, South Korea, Samoa
• Member: Maldives
• Rapporteur: New Zealand

The main agenda items of the Third Session included the following:

• Strategic direction and functioning of the Committee on Statistics
• Regional and global initiatives
• Coordination of statistical capacity building activities
• Consideration of the future focus of the statistics subprogramme of the ESCAP secretariat

Three side events took place during the Third Session:

• The Fourth Meeting of Partners (Partnership) for Statistics Development in Asia-Pacific took place on 12 December 2012 and was attended by over 20 people from different agencies. The Partnership members discussed the latest situation concerning the improvement of statistics in Asia and the Pacific. The Centre was represented by Dr. Savas Alpay, Director General, and Mr. Atilla Karaman, Researcher. For more information, please visit: http://www.unescap.org/stat/partnership/index.asp
• Lunch-time event on Statistics of Human Development took place on 13 December 2012. The Human Development Report Office of the United Nations Development Programme held an informative/consultative discussion during the Third session of the Committee on Statistics. The discussion covered issues generally related to statistical quality of indicators used and presented in Human Development Reports with the particular focus on Small Island Developing States and the Least Developed Countries from the region.
• Side event on ICT statistics took place on 14 December 2012. The event highlighted the role of ICT as an accelerator of development. In that context, the participants noted that ICT statistics were an important part of the evidence base for effective policymaking. For more information, please visit: http://www.unescap.org/stat/cst/3/side-event/index.asp

The Third Session was adjourned after the adoption of the Final Report. For more information, please visit: http://www.unescap.org/stat/cst/3/index.asp