The National Statistics Center signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Ministry of Environment to develop a common environmental database.
In the presence of His Excellency Sultan Bin Saeed Al Mansouri, UAE Minister of Economy and His Excellency Dr. Rashid Ahmad Bin Fahad, Minister of Environment, the MoU was signed by His Excellency Rashed Al Suwaidi, Director General of the National Statistics Center, and H.E Obeid Joumaa Al Matroushi, Acting Director General of the Ministry of Environment.
Mr Al Suwaidi: “The MoU will help build a strategic partnership to create a statistical database that will enable policymakers to make right decisions pertaining to the environment. This database will also be valuable for regional and international organisations in assessing the sustainable development initiatives of the UAE.”
The meeting of the international Statistical Committee held recently in New York highlighted the importance of having environmental statistics as a top consideration for the global statistical agenda.
Obeid Al Matroushi said the partnership with the National Statics Centre will contribute to developing a credible and up-to-date database on environment-related activities in the UAE. He said that most of the international organisations evaluate the environment performance of countries based on the data provided.
The MOU aims at specifying areas of cooperation between the National Statistics Center and Ministry of Environment to collect, manage and analyse environmental data to form a national integrated database about the environment and link it with the original data base of the National Statistics Center.
Both parties will exchange experiences to build an intergraded environment data base, and coordinate the design of the forms and the applications used to collect data and statistical information about the environment.
The National Statics Center will offer training to develop the skills of the employees involved in statistical work at the Ministry. The Ministry of Environment will involve the Center at all committees formed to work on the projects in preparing the environment data base.
