CANADIAN GOVERNMENT AND UNESCO SIGN AGREEMENT TO ESTABLISH INSTITUTE FOR STATISTICS IN MONTREAL

Paris, May 18 (No.2001-06) - Director-General Koïchiro Matsuura and Louis Hamel, Ambassador and Permanent Delegate of Canada to UNESCO, today signed the formal agreement on the installation of the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) in Montreal, Quebec. The agreement result from the decision taken by the Executive Board of the Organization in May 2000 to accept Canada's bid to host the Institute.

The agreement governs the conditions of the Institute's location in Canada together with the financial support the Governments of Canada and Quebec are to provide. The Institute's permanent home will be on the campus of the University of Montreal to which the UIS is due to move to in September 2001.

The UIS is the statistical office of UNESCO and is the international agency in charge of global and cross-national data relating to education, science and technology, culture and communication.

The UIS was established in 1999 to improve the quality, coherence, and impact of the statistical programme of UNESCO. Institute staff work with statisticians and researchers in countries to help them develop and gather relevant and accurate data in a timely fashion, and to use those data to inform policy formulation and monitoring. The work of the Institute is overseen by an international governing board of twelve high-level experts.

The UIS incorporates the EFA Observatory, the UNESCO body created in order to satisfy the statistical demands generated by the Education for All programme. The Observatory is taking the lead role in monitoring progress towards the goals of Education for All, including the key target of achieving universal primary education by the year 2015. These goals were put on the global agenda during the World Education Forum held in Dakar (Senegal) in April last year, which brought together representatives of governments, international organizations and civil societies.

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