1 week ago
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Belize is hosting a four-day workshop this week focused on population estimates and projections. The event brings together representatives from across the Caribbean, including over 15 staff members from the Statistical Institute of Belize (SIB), for highly technical training aimed at improving the reliability of population data. This workshop is designed to help policymakers make better-informed decisions when developing programs and interventions, particularly for vulnerable populations. The training is made possible through funding from the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) and is part of the “Enabling of Belize’s Statistical System” project. According to SIB Director General Diana Castillo, the event’s primary goal is to strengthen the institute’s ability to produce reliable population projections.
Diana Castillo, Director General, SIB: “We at the SIB recognize that population projections, population estimation, demographic analysis was an area that was in need of strengthening for us. So this will strengthen our internal capacity in terms of our ability to produce reliable quality population estimates, estimates for the future, annual estimates in between censuses and so on. As you know, when we did the last census what we noted was that, and it’s something that we were expecting, that the census counts came out less than what was originally projected. And what we found was that there was a serious deficiency in our method of estimating population. And what we did then was we did an exercise of revamping our own methodology and so this training here will just serve to strengthen that and further improve that so that going forward we don’t have instances of that kind of deficiency. This is strengthening statistical methodology. So this is going to get deep into the technical methods of how do we go about estimating our populations every year, how do we go about projecting for the future, what we are working with different statistical applications and software to do this. So this is a very technical training aimed at enhancing the skills of our statisticians and our data analysts.”
Originally intended for Belizean staff, the workshop was expanded to include regional partners through a collaborative effort with the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC). Representatives from both organizations are also supporting the initiative, highlighting its importance for the entire Caribbean region. The workshop, which began this morning, will continue for the remainder of the week.
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