UNFPA: Helping to gather data for Development across the World

Information about a country's population, growth, its characteristics, how and where people live and its physical resources is vital to plan, formulate and implement policy.

Despite a great improvement in data collection and analysis worldwide, even the basic demographic indicators provided by many countries are unreliable, incomplete, or difficult to obtain. This so-called 'data barrier' is an obstacle for planners in many developing countries.

In order to collect such data, fill in the gaps and do analysis, governments need capacity and skills in demographic and statistical methods. Across the world, UNFPA is helping with both the collection and analysis of data . It is also training governments how to do it themselves.

UNFPA has long played a leading role in helping countries conduct 10-year population censuses. The Fund provides technical assistance and support for census taking, demographic and health surveys, creating databases, computer software development and training. It also supports socio-cultural research using qualitative and participatory research methods.

UNFPA continues to help countries give gender a prominent role in the collection, analysis and use

of data. Gender-disaggregated data (data which is broken down along male/female lines) is needed in order to provide a more accurate picture of women's economic contributions to society, including their management roles and their unpaid labor in the family and in the informal sector.

Data for Development in Turkey and the South Caucasus Region

Although with very different histories Turkey, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia have all seen dramatic changes in the dynamics of their population in the last few decades.

Since becoming independent from the former Soviet Union, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia have all suffered economic and political instability sometimes with the internal displacement of large numbers of people. With new freedom to travel and with the problems of poverty and unemployment at home, many people from these countries have migrated to cities or abroad either temporarily or permanently to seek work or a better life.

In Turkey, successive economic crises in recent decades and, particularly in the southeast of the country, security issues have influenced huge numbers of people to move from rural areas to towns and cities.

These changes in where and how people live have had a major impact on population dynamics. UNFPA is helping the individual governments in all four countries to gather and analyze information about their changed and changing populations in order to make the decisions and policies which best meet their needs.

Across the region greater there is greater sexual freedom but also an increase in the spread of sexually transmitted infections including HIV/AIDS . Gathering data about the reproductive health knowledge and behavior of people particularly young people in all four countries is vital to safeguarding the health of current and future generations.

Data for Development in Armenia

Data for Development in Turkey

Data for Development in Azerbaijan

Data for Development in Georgia

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