Sub-Committee on Statistical Activities (SSA)

Until October 2001, when the United Nations System Chief Executives Board for Coordination (CEB) decided, as part of the reform of its working methods, that coordination should be pursued through more informal and flexible mechanisms rather than formal subsidiary bodies, the Sub-Committee on Statistical Activities constituted a forum for consultations and coordination between entities with mandates in statistical activities on those aspects of their activities that were of mutual concern.

The ACC Sub-Committee on Statistical Activities (ACC/SSA) was established in 1966. Its membership included UN system organizations with statistical programmes or major users/founders of statistical activities, as well as observers from several non-UN organizations. Its mandate was to promote co-ordination, integration and complementarity among the statistical programmes of the international organizations and to provide coordinated preparations for the treatment of statistical issues in meetings of intergovernmental bodies and coordinated follow-up of decisions of intergovernmental bodies.

In order to carry out this mandate, ACC/SSA members collaborated inter alia on:

• Policies and practices in disseminating statistics;
• Statistical data collection from countries;
• Technical cooperation activities;
• Development of indicators for monitoring the achievement of social goals;
• Development of statistical methods;
• Monitoring implementation of recommended statistical recommendations in countries;
• Preparation of tools to promote coordination, including an integrated presentation of planned outputs in statistical methodology by the international organizations;
• Preparations for and follow-up to the decisions of the Statistical Commission of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) and its Working Group.

  In order to continue the coordination work which was widely considered necessary and effective, the United Nations Statistics Division in consultation with Chief Statisticians of the UN system (and beyond) called an Inter-Agency Meeting on the Coordination of Statistical Activities which was held from 17 to 19 September 2002 in New York and which was attended by statistical managers of 21 organizations. In the meeting, the Committee for the Coordination of Statistical Activities (CCSA) was established as the future format of inter-agency coordination in the area of statistics.

ACC/SSA met once a year and its reports were made available to the Statistical Commission of ECOSOC. The Chair rotated among participants.