From ECONOMIC COMMISSION FOR LATIN AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN (ECLAC) SUBREGIONAL HEADQUARTERS FOR THE CARIBBEAN

The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) subregional headquarters for the Caribbean and the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) are jointly hosting a Regional Capacity Building Workshop in Kingston, Jamaica from 04-15 April 2016. The event, also a collaboration with the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), will provide technical training to 17 persons from the Cayman Islands, Jamaica and Saint Kitts and Nevis to promote wider use and analysis of national Population and Housing Census data.

Government statisticians from the three countries will learn how to use the REDATAM software (REtrieval of DATa for small Areas by Microcomputer) to develop online applications for the dissemination of national census data.

Experts from ECLAC’s headquarters in Santiago, Chile and its Caribbean office in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago will conduct training on the conversion of census databases to the REDATAM format; the production of tables and indicators; and the development of applications for data dissemination. A similar workshop was held in St. George’s, Grenada in October 2014.

The event will demonstrate how the mining and dissemination of census data can provide evidence for policymakers in a range of areas, including health, education, gender equality, labour and unemployment, and disability. It is part of a series of initiatives, which aim to improve census processes and analyses across the Caribbean region.

REDATAM enables statistical offices to provide members of the public with controlled online access to census data including interactive tabulations, charts and maps based on real time processing of census data. The REDATAM software, which is supported and maintained by ECLAC, is freely available.

The workshop complements ongoing work by ECLAC and its partners on data anonymization. Data Anonymization enables census data to be more widely disseminated while still protecting the confidentiality of individual census records. Another workshop, Demographic Analysis and Population Projections, is scheduled for April 18-29, 2016. Participants from 18 Caribbean countries will learn how to measure and analyse population trends including patterns of fertility, mortality and migration.