Page 68 - Invited Paper Session (IPS) - Volume 2

IPS179 Per Nymand-Andersen
Figure 3: The need to strengthen the communication of statistics.

This raises the following question: who has the legitimate responsibility to
safeguard facts and figures and to facilitate the sharing and reuse of good
quality statistics for evidence-based and sustainable policymaking?

2. Official statistics as trustworthy sources – taking up the
communication challenge
The communication challenge is recognised by the international
community. Eurostat and the European Statistical System have developed the
“European Statistical System Vision 2020”, in which communication plays a
new and important role. Communication needs to be conceptualised and
operationalised by those agents responsible for providing official statistics and
must demonstrate the importance of independent national and international
official statistics in society.
The European central banking community has established a voluntary
group – the “Statistics Accessibility and Presentation” Group (STAP) – to
generate new proposals for enhancing the accessibility and usability of
European System of Central Banks statistics and to lead and coordinate the
implementation of the initiatives.
One of STAP’s core deliverables has been he creation of the new “Our
statistics” website , available in 23 official EU languages. The website aims to
6
improve the communication of central banking statistics by presenting
selected core statistics series using visuals and graphics, thereby facilitating

6 See www.euro-area-statistics.org
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