On 24 June 2024, the ICT Statistics Week for the CIS region kicked off in Tashkent, Republic of Uzbekistan.
The event kicks off with a three-day International Telecommunication Union (ITU) training workshop on ICT statistics for measuring universal and meaningful digital connectivity for CIS countries.
The workshop participants were welcomed by:
- Zhamol Makhsudov, Deputy Minister of Digital Technologies of the Republic of Uzbekistan,
- Jose Luis Cervera-Ferry, Senior Statistician, Telecommunication Development Bureau,
- Natalia Mochu, Director, ITU Regional Office for the CIS,
- Alexey Borodin, RCC Director General, Regional Commonwealth in the Field of Communications (RCC).
In his greeting the RCC Director General noted the importance of harmonisation and interfacing of approaches to the collection and processing of data in the field of ICT statistics at the level of the CIS region and the identity of data in transmission for international rankings, in particular ITU rankings (IDI, GCI, ICT Price Baskets, etc.). In this regard, the significant potential of co-operation between the CIS Interstate Statistical Committee (CIS Statistical Committee) and the RCC was noted, which was supported by the signing of the relevant Memorandum of Understanding by the decision of the June meeting of the RCC Board of the Communications Administrations Heads.
The training workshop, organised jointly with the Ministry of Digital Technologies of the Republic of Uzbekistan, will provide an opportunity to explore the concept of universal and meaningful digital connections and ways to optimise it in the national digital policy. In addition, the workshop will contribute to improving the statistical capacity of the CIS states to produce and disseminate relevant statistics, and promote the best use of these data to find and shape best practices and policy recommendations.
The audience of the workshop includes government officials responsible for national digital connectivity policies and strategies, as well as managers and experts from ministries, national statistical offices, regulators, telecom operators, research institutes and other relevant organisations in the CIS region responsible for measuring telecommunication/ICT development.
The ICT Statistics Week for the CIS region will also include a strategic expert session on ICT statistics for representatives of the CIS Statistical Committee, national statistical offices, experts from the Ministries of Communications and Digital Development of the region and the RCC (26 June 2024) and a joint-meeting of ITU, CIS Statistical Committee and RCC on the development of ICT statistics in the CIS region (27 June 2024).