WHY THE NEED FOR THE e-CISTAR?
The need for statistics has been recognised by the Heads of Government of CARICOM, when in 2016, at the Thirty-Seventh Meeting of the Conference of Heads of Government (HGC), the Action Plan for Statistics in the Caribbean was endorsed, which called for the strengthening of the National Statistical Systems (NSS) across the Region. The Action Plan took into consideration the increased demand for statistics in the context of indicators to monitor the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the need for continuous training of statistical personnel. Further, the Thirty-Eighth Meeting of the HGC endorsed the preparation of a Regional Strategy for the Development of Statistics (RSDS) as an overarching strategic framework to facilitate the transformation and modernisation of the Regional Statistical System (RSS) of CARICOM. The discussions on the RSDS also point to the need for training and sustainable capacity-building as a vital factor in enabling the production and dissemination of high quality statistics on the Community on a sustainable basis, among other drivers such as the 2030 Agenda, gender mainstreaming and information technology (IT) infrastructure.
The genesis of the e-CISTAR lies in the past efforts of the Standing Committee of Caribbean Statisticians (SCCS) to establish a physical Caribbean Institute for Statistical Training and Research (CISTAR), in recognition of the needs for training of statisticians in the Region. More recently, at a meeting on the Caribbean Conference on the Transformative Agenda for Official Statistics convened by the CARICOM Secretariat and the United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD) in Barbados during September 2016, the e-CISTAR emerged as a key recommendation under the theme Capacity-Building. It was thought that given the advances in IT, the opportunity to develop an e-CISTAR could now be pursued in a form that could eliminate/minimise the past challenges relative to any long-term financial implications of a physical training institute.
WHAT CONTENT WILL BE AVAILABLE INITIALLY?
The current site will undergo continuous updates and design changes as the e-CISTAR is developed. However, some of the initial work to be undertaken include:
- Incorporation into the Knowledge Base (KB) component of the e-CISTAR, of the existing manuals, guidelines and other reference documents produced through various projects executed by the CARICOM Secretariat through funding support by IDPs;
- Inclusion of links in the KB to other guidelines and resources, including those to online courses available under the current Help Desk;
- Establishment of a Questions and Answers (Q&A) and frequently asked questions (FAQs) section, as a sub-component of the KB;
- Incorporation of a Discussion Forum and a blog as sub-components of the e-CISTAR.