Page 42 - Invited Paper Session (IPS) - Volume 1

IPS55 Hermann H. et al.
illustration of the problems in implementation of the Fundamental Principles
in the United States.

2. Fundamental Principles, Credibility and Public Trust
1
As described on the United Nations web site the need for a set of
principles governing official statistics became apparent at the end of the 1980s
when countries in Central Europe began to changenfrom centrally planned
economies to market-oriented democracies. It was essential to ensure that
national statistical systems in such countries would be able to produce
appropriate and reliable data that adhered to certain professional and
scientific standards. Towards this end, the Conference of European
Statisticians developed and adopted the Fundamental Principles of Official
Statistics in 1991 (CES/702), which were subsequently adopted in 1992 at the
ministerial level by ECE as decision C (47). Statisticians in other parts of the
world soon realized that the principles were of much wider, global significance.
Following an international consultation process, a milestone in the history of
international statistics was reached when the United Nations Statistical
Commission at its Special Session of 11-15 April 1994 adopted the very same
set of principles – with a revised preamble – as the United Nations
Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics.
At its forty-second session in 2011, the Statistical Commission discussed
the Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics and acknowledged that the
Principles were still as relevant today as they had been in the past and that no
revision of the 10 Principles themselves was necessary. The Commission
recommended, however, that a Friends of the Chair group revise and update
the preamble of the Fundamental Principles in order to take into account new
developments since the time when the Principles were first formulated. At its
forty-fourth session in 2013, the Statistical Commission adopted the revised
preamble.
At the same session the Commission recommended to the Economic and
Social Council the adoption of a draft resolution on the Fundamental Principles
of Official Statistics. In accordance with that recommendation, the Council
endorsed the Fundamental Principles in its resolution 2013/21 of 24 July 2013.
In the same resolution, the Council recommended the Fundamental Principles
to the General Assembly for endorsement. Pursuant to the recommendation
of the Economic and Social Council, the representative of Hungary, together
with 48 co-sponsors, introduced a draft resolution on the matter at the sixty-
eighth session of the General Assembly. After a short informal consultation
process, the Assembly, in its resolution 68/261 of 29 January 2014 endorsed
the Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics.

1 https://unstats.un.org/unsd/dnss/gp/fundprinciples.aspx
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