Introduction

In September 2015, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, consisting of 17 goals with 169 targets, as a universal call to action to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure that all people enjoy peace and prosperity. The international community also agreed to develop 232 global indicators to be used to monitor progress towards the SDGs that all countries should undertake, in particular the development of statistical databases and the preparation of periodic national reports on developmental achievements and their presentation in international forums such as the World Summits, and the annual High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development 2030 (HLPF). The international community is keen on its plan that no one is left behind.

In this context, countries, including the State of Qatar, need to make major changes to their statistical system in order to collect and disseminate consistent, reliable, high-quality and timely data and indicators. The data should be internationally comparable in order to track and compare progress towards development efforts at the regional and international level, to meet the challenges of achieving the goals, to promote and improve the quality of life of societies and to achieve sustainable economic, social and environmental development.

Hence, the State of Qatar is interested in joining the Transformative Agenda for Official Statistics formulated by the United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD) in order to modernize its statistical system and for innovation in all stages of the national statistical process; to build its national capacities in accordance with international standards enabling it to produce the data and indicators necessary to meet the needs of the said agenda; and to support the National Development Strategy 2018- 2022, sectoral policies and other decision-making centers at the national level.

Complementing the efforts exerted by the Planning and Statistics Authority (formerly the Ministry of Development Planning and Statistics) to modernize the national statistical system since the launch of its modernization project in 2016, it organizes a "Regional Workshop on Modernization of Official Statistics in the State of Qatar". 2 The workshop aims to promote the exploration of new data sources using big data, to enhance traditional sources at the same time, to provide consistent and comprehensive data using artificial intelligence, data science and innovation in all aspects of the statistical process, to deepen modernization and build national capacity, and to communicate with national and international data users.

To this end, the Planning and Statistics Authority prepared a background document entitled "Modernization of Official Statistics in Support of Sustainable Development Goals in Qatar: The Road Map", as a vision to guide the transformation process and reach consensus on key areas of action to be considered.

This Workshop is to shed light on the priority aspects that should be given due attention in the modernization process in order to promote official statistics in the State. This activity comes within the framework of the transformation of official statistics project to support the Sustainable Development Agenda which is being implemented by Qatar as a lead country in this field, in cooperation with the United Nations Statistics Division, other United Nations organizations, regional, Arab and Islamic organizations, ministries and government agencies, research centers, universities and others.