27 February 2013

Today, at its session in New York, the United Nations Statistical Commission has approved an updated Framework for the Development of Environment Statistics (FDES 2013). Experts of the Czech Statistical Office made an important contribution to preparations of this strategic document.

An Expert Group of over two dozens of experts representing all regions of the World, developing countries as well developed ones, and international organisations and agencies chaired by Ms Iva Ritschelová, President of the Czech Statistical Office, has been working on the new concept for almost three years.

“It is an important moment for the Czech Statistical Office and for me personally. I can also see this success from the point of view of a human who was standing at the cradle of the development of environment statistics in the Czech Republic more than twenty years ago. The Czech Republic chairing of the Expert Group can also be taken as appreciation of a high professional level of our country statisticians,” added Ms President of the CZSO .

Primary objective of the new Framework is to provide assistance to countries in establishing and directing of environmental statistics. It was worked out the way to serve the needs of both countries, which are still in the phase of establishing environment statistics, and of other countries, which have been gradually developing their national systems of environment statistics. It is sufficiently flexible to enable taking into account nation specific issues and priorities of the environment.

“I consider the adoption of the revised version of the Framework to be a very important milestone in history of environmental management in general and in the development of environment statistics particularly. The application of this unified concept should lead to a further development of the data basis on international scale,” mentioned Ms Iva Ritschelová following the document approval at the UN.

The Framework structure encompasses six partial areas. These are the central section covering issues of environmental quality, and then other areas, which are closely tied to the central section, as follows: environmental resources and their use, residuals, extreme events and disasters, human settlements and environmental health, and environment protection, management and engagement. Each of the areas is then broken down to the level of respective statistical indicators. Every indicator is, at the same time, classified to one of three categories in accord with its significance and potential demands for its putting into practice. The selection of concrete indicators then depends on hands of the particular country.

The new version of the Framework for the Development of Environment Statistics is based on the original UN document approved as early as in 1984, which has been successfully motivating and supporting all the nations of the World in building of statistical systems focused on the environment for almost three decades. The new version of the Framework is based on experience with its previous version application in many countries and responds mainly to changes in areas of economy, society as well as of the environment, which have occurred in the meantime.

Simultaneously with the Framework, there were a programme to support its implementation approved and a Standing Expert Group on Environment Statistics was established, with the objective to assist countries with the formation of national environment statistics. Both these measures give a chance to our country experts to become involved in these activities in an active manner, namely in developing countries.

More detailed information on the FDES 2013, environment statistics in general, technical assistance in this field, and on other themes you can find at: http://unstats.un.org/unsd/environment/default.htm


Contact:
Mr Jan Cieslar
Spokesman of the Czech Statistical Office
Tel.: 274 052 017
GSM: 724 800 157
E-mail: jan.cieslar@czso.cz