(CARCIOM Secretariat, Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown, Guyana) The Caribbean Community (CARICOM), in collaboration with the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB), has embarked on a project to strengthen the Region's capacity in Demographic Analysis.

The Community launched the project on June 28 at the CARICOM Secretariat, Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown, Guyana. The project, facilitated through funding from CDB, is a multi-year programme of training in Demographic Analysis that seeks to address the training needs of statisticians and social policy formulators through: the hosting of a seven-week workshop each year for three years; a monitoring and evaluation system; and an introductory course on `Principles of Demography’.

Each annual workshop caters for 25 participants from CARICOM Member States and Regional Institutions and lecturers will be drawn from the three campuses of the University of the West Indies (UWI).

One of the workshops is now underway at the Sir Arthur Lewis Institute of Social and Economic Studies (SALISES), St Augustine Campus, Trinidad and Tobago. It began on 2 July and will conclude on 17 August.

The project ultimately aims to provide a pool of skilled statistical personnel by building the capacity of statisticians and social researchers to analyse demographic data in the conduct of research and policy formulation.

The course content includes 'Sources of Demographic Data'; 'Demographic Theories'; 'Measures of Nuptiality'; 'Mortality Measures'; 'Migration Measures'; 'Population Estimates and Projections' and 'Indirect Techniques of Estimation'.

The project will be executed and managed by the CARICOM Secretariat through its Statistical Unit, while the training programme will be a collaborative effort among key regional organizations working together to improve living standards of the population of the Caribbean. An advisory committee, comprising representatives from CDB, CARICOM, UWI and the United Nations Economic Commission on Latin America and the Caribbean (UNECLAC) will provide policy advice and will monitor the project's implementation.