IAOS Satellite Meeting "Measuring Small and Indigenous Populations".

• Author: Qiao, Chungui
• Position: International Association for Official Statistics

The IAOS (International Association for Official Statistics) Satellite Meeting "Measuring Small and Indigenous Populations" was held in Wellington on 14-15 April 2005. The meeting was hosted by New Zealand's national statistics office, Statistics New Zealand, and was held in conjunction with the International Statistical Institute (ISI) 2005 Conference in Sydney, Australia.

Approximately 230 delegates from all over the world attended the meeting, which presented five keynote speakers and another 76 international and national speakers addressing issues and challenges in measuring small and indigenous populations. Tu Williams, Chairperson of the Maori Statistics Forum, led a Maori welcome ceremony for the participants. Brian Pink, New Zealand's Government Statistician, then opened the conference by identifying the goal of the meeting as being to challenge existing thinking on official statistics--which he declared to be successfully achieved at the conference's close. Conference abstracts and papers are available from the Statistics New Zealand website: www.stats.govt.nz/about-us/events/satellite-meeting/default.htm.

THE THEME OF THE MEETING

The general theme of the meeting was addressing key issues facing small and indigenous populations, measuring and monitoring their social and economic wellbeing, and exploring practical approaches to progress in these areas. Following the establishment by the United Nations (UN) of a Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues in 2000, as a subsidiary organ of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), it seemed inevitable that sooner or later an international gathering of statisticians and allied professionals would be convened to explore the dimensions and challenges of measuring small and indigenous populations. Much deliberation preceded this UN initiative, as precise definition of the world's indigenous populations had been elusive. These crucial issues are directly related to the development of social and economic statistics for the populations of Maori and Pacific peoples, and other ethnic minorities in New Zealand.

While the main focus was on methodological issues, the meeting was also of direct interest to economic and social researchers, as the theme encompassed the main challenges of measuring small domains in economic, social and population statistics. Other areas of focus included the following issues relating to small and/or indigenous populations:

* statistical methods used to collect information in censuses or other large-scale surveys

* measurement and improvement of data quality

* the derivation of indicators on indigenous populations, communities or subnational areas

* statistical use of administrative data sources

* experience with data integration initiatives

* small area estimation

* other new developments in satisfying the growing demand for disaggregated statistical measures.

Keynote Addresses

The five plenary sessions addressed the overarching theme of the rights and concerns of indigenous peoples, the practical difficulty of collecting information on their social and economic development through traditional approaches, and the obligations and strategies of government departments (especially national statistics offices) in the light of the UN's initiatives on data collection and disaggregation for indigenous populations. The keynote speakers also discussed methodological issues and relevant statistical modelling approaches to meet the information needs of the small and indigenous populations, and presented successful examples in these areas. Papers presented by the keynote speakers included:

* "Political and methodological issues in country experiences of measuring ethnic communities, small and indigenous populations" by Len Cook, National Statistician, Office for National Statistics, United Kingdom

* "Telling stories with numbers: Whose stories? Who is the storyteller? Who listens? Who acts?" by Professor Linda Tuhiwai Smith, Co-Director, Nga Pae o te Maramatanga (National Institute of Research Excellence for Maori Development and Advancement), University of Auckland, New Zealand

* "When systems collide: On the enumeration of indigenous Australian populations" by Dr John Taylor, Senior Fellow, Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research, Australian National University, Australia

* "Small area estimation of literacy in developing countries with application to Cambodia" by Professor Danny Pfeffermann, Department of Social Statistics, University of Southampton, United Kingdom, and Hebrew University, Israel.

* "Report of the United Nations Workshop on Data Collection and Disaggregation for Indigenous Peoples" by Michael Dodson, member of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, Australia.

Concurrent Sessions

The 22 concurrent sessions covered the conference theme using a wider spectrum, varying from poverty and social development issues of ethnic minorities, and measuring and monitoring progress of indigenous populations, to data collection problems and methodologies for these groups. They focused on the following topics:

* measuring indigenous health

* internal migration of Australia's indigenous population

* small area estimation for health planning

* developing a statistical framework for indigenous populations

* population and development in the Pacific islands--rediscovering the relevance

* estimating small area/domain populations--challenges and issues

* Maori development issues

* statistical issues in enumerating small populations in the census

* indigenous businesses and the economy of mana or affection--a Maori case study

* data collection, privacy and confidentiality issues

* official statistics on ethnicity: measurement issues

* collecting data on indigenous populations

* applications of small area techniques

* internal migration--concepts, issues and dynamics

* census of small countries

* small area estimation

* indigenous labour-related issues

* indigenous...