The Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics (ICBS) and its partner Statistics Denmark are launching a European Union Twinning project on Tuesday, May 28 at 14:00 at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Jerusalem. At the kick-off event, representatives from the EU Delegation to Israel, the Danish Embassy in Israel, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs will address the participants.
The newly appointed Government Statistician, Prof. Danny Pfeffermann, will officially invite partners of ICBS in the development, production and consumption of official statistics in Israel, including top Israeli researchers, and main official producers and customers in ministries and public organizations, to participate actively in the relevant project activities.
The overall objective of the Twinning Project is to improve the quality and the international comparability of Israel's official statistics in key domains, reliable statistics being required for effective and efficient policy making.
The Twinning Project will be supervised by the two project leaders, Olivia Blum of ICBS and Lars Thygesen of Statistics Denmark. On a daily basis a Resident Twinning Advisor, Thomas Bie of Statistics Denmark, will manage the project alongside his ICBS counterpart Batia Attali. Additional experts from Statistics Denmark will guide and support the project by means of a series of working groups, workshops, training sessions as well as study visits to Europe. The European Union is funding this project with a budget of 850,000 Euros.
The whole world of statistics is changing at an accelerated pace: more data is available more easily; a widely diversified range of users is now seeking statistical information and the production of statistics is not the turf of any single sector. In the wider context of global processes, international organizations are assuming some of the roles of the national systems, as leaders, users and producers of internationally comparable statistics.
The future of official statistics will be discussed at then kick-off event by a panel that will include the Government Statistician of Israel, Prof. Danny Pfefferman; Deputy Governor of the Bank of Israel, Dr. Karnit Flug; Deputy Head of the National Economic Council in the Prime Minister's Office Dr. Yulia Eitan; Senior Deputy Accountant General in the Ministry of Finance, CPA Yali Rothenberg and the Twinning Project Leader Lars Thygesen.
