UNFPA China and its partners of the joint data project - National Statistics Bureau (NBS) and UNICEF - held an annual project meeting to review progress made in 2013, and to discuss plans for 2014. Ms. Soyoltuya Bayaraa, Deputy Representative of UNFPA China and Ms. Lisa Bow, Chief of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation (PME) Section of UNICEF China, attended the meeting. Mr. Du Weiqun, Director General of the Department of International Cooperation of NBS chaired the meeting. Project implementers from the Department of Social, Science and Technology and Cultural Statistics and the Department of Population and Employment Statistics presented the project’s achievements in 2013 and plans for 2014.
At the meeting, the participants agreed that the project successfully implemented its planned activities in 2013, with high quality results. These activities, including improving statistics on urbanization, technical preparation for the forthcoming 2015 “mini census” and next national population census, advocacy for more disaggregated data, particularly sex-disaggregated data, matched well with national priorities. The China International Seminar on the 2010 Round of Census held in Hangzhou was a successful event and brought together experts from many countries to exchange experiences in census taking and data analysis.
In 2014, in order to reflect the most recent population dynamics within national data collection, the project will continue to support NBS in its technical preparations for the 2015 mini census, further dissemination of 2010 census data through the development of a GIS database, and improving the annual population sampling survey. The joint project will support the Chinese Disabled People’s Federation (CDPF), as a pilot to improve the capacity of various sectors to generate disaggregated data, including by sex.
With regards to future needs, capacity-building support to improve the quality of data provided to NBS by other ministries was discussed and will be explored, building on the on-going programmes that UNFPA and UNICEF have with key ministries in China.
With support from UNFPA, NBS for the first time conducted China’s third population and housing census by using international standards and modern subsequent census technology in 1982. Subsequently, UNFPA continued to support national capacity in generating sex-disaggregated data in national statistics system. UNFPA will continue supporting NBS and other partners to make reliable and disaggregated population data available to support development policy-making.
