Statistic Division is the backbone of other ministries, which helps them formulate government policies and its implementation. This was stated by Statistics Division Parliamentary Secretary Dr Rozina Tufail.
While inaugurating a weeklong training workshop on "Income distribution and poverty measurement" here at Training Wing of the Federal Bureau of Statistics (FBS) on Monday.
The training workshop has been organised by the FBS, Training Wing, with technical and financial assistance from the United Nations Statistical Institute for Asia and the Pacific (UNSIAP), to enhance and sharpen the professional competency of statisticians.
Gereltuya Altankhuyag, an expert on the subject working in the Statistical Institute for Asia and the Pacific, United Nations, Tokyo, Japan, is the resource person for conducting the training workshop.
About 23 officers from FBS, Provincial Planning and Development Departments, Provincial Bureaus of Statistics, Centre for Poverty Reduction and Income Distribution Islamabad and International Institute of Islamic Economics, International Islamic University, are attending the course.
Parliamentary Secretary, Statistics Division, Dr Rozina Tufail speaking on the occasion, said that statisticians were like watchdogs and played a vital role in the benchmarking of various sectors of economy like information technology, agriculture sector and industrial sector.
She expressed the hope that course would play an important role for improving the professional competency of Statisticians and Economists dealing with Poverty Measurement and Income Distribution.
She added that efforts of the Statistics Division would go a long way for enhancing the professional and technical skills of the statisticians working in different statistical organisations and universities at national and provincial level ultimately benefiting the people and the country.
The course will focus on the concept of wellbeing and poverty. Definition of poverty line, issues in choosing an absolute poverty line and various steps in measuring poverty will be part of this course.
She will also discuss various measures of poverty such as headcount index; poverty gap and squared poverty gap index. Inequality measures like Lorenz curve, basic inequality measures, Gini coefficient; dispersion ratios, share of expenditures of poorest etc will also be covered in this course. Computer software STATA will be used for practical exercises for construction of poverty lines. Principal of the Training Wing Muhammad Younus Khan was also present on the occasion.