Member States begin their census exercises from next year until 2022.

The statisticians and other stakeholders began a week-long meeting at the CARICOM Secretariat on Monday. Their activities include a meeting of the Regional Census Coordinating Committee (RCCC) and a Training Workshop in Census Management and Planning.

Information on population and housing, and baseline data, are necessary to monitor and report on the sustainable development goals and the Samoa Pathway to evaluate the impact of those interventions which seek ultimately to eradicate poverty.

The RCCC Meeting and the workshop are supported by International Development Partners including Canada, through the Project for the Regional Advancement of Statistics in the Caribbean (PRASC); the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) through a project Support to CARICOM Regionally Coordinated Census Strategy-Common Census Framework 2.0; the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA); ESRI International; and the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB).