Permanent Mission of the Russian Federation to the United Nations

Permanent Mission of the Russian Federation to the United Nations

Statement by Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia, Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation to the United Nations, at the Signing Ceremony of Russia-UNFPA co-financing Agreement on the programme "Kyrgyzstat: Strengthening national statistics systems of the Kyrgyz Republic to produce, analyze and disseminate population statistics"

Excellency,

Ms. Regional Director,

Dear guests,

You said that Russia is the champion of ICPD (International Conference on Population and Development), I can boast – I participated in ICPD back in 1994.

The implementation of the 2030 Agenda for sustainable development is in need of the availability of quality, accessible, timely and reliable disaggregated data, especially with regards to population, to ensure that no one is left behind. This poses extra burden on national statistical services, which will require investments in personnel, surveys and harder forms of data production.

It is my pleasure that today we mark the launch of a new Russia-UNFPA Programme of strengthening the Kyrgyz Republic’s national statistical systems to produce, analyze and disseminate population statistics in the country. This is not the first experience of our deepening cooperation with UNFPA: we base this project on positive experience of the similar project that we had with Belarus.

This one is based on the national development priorities of the Kyrgyz Republic, as well as on the recent outcomes of the UN Statistical Commission. We are convinced that the development of the project has the potential to underpin collective efforts of Russia, the Eurasian Economic Union and the UN system in supporting Kyrgyzstan on its pathway to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.

We hope that this initiative will serve as a trigger for a series of projects in the field of population statistics in the Central Asia region, and Kyrgyzstan who is one of our key partners in that region.

Thank you.