Chair,
We would like to express our appreciation for all the excellent and important work done by the Population Division ahead of, and during, this CPD session. The Population Division has a unique position in international demography, with a wide range of publications, datasets and activities that bring demographers together. We want to emphasize the importance of your work with the World Population Prospects. In Norway we use the UN projections as a benchmark, and we look to the Population Division for innovations and improvements of projection methodologies.
Reliable, harmonized and comparable data across nations is essential in order to improve our understanding of demographic phenomena and trends. This is the foundation of facts-based analyses and policy making at both national and international levels. We recognize that arriving at comparative measures and comparable data is extremely challenging and we appreciate the longstanding efforts of the Population Division in this regard.
One of the themes at this year’s CPD session is international migration. We support the importance placed on high quality comparable data in the ongoing work on the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration and the Global compact on refugees. In addition, we anticipate the recommendations on comparable refugee and IDP statistics from the Expert Group on Refugee and Internally Displaced Persons Statistics under the UN statistical commission, of which Norway is a member.
We also welcome the inclusion of the variable reason for migration in the UN Handbook on Measuring International Migration through Population Censuses (UNSD) for the 2020 round. Reasons for migration is a key question to be incorporated in a census questionnaire to identify stock of refugees and refugee-like populations. Norway is committed to support countries in the global south implementing the recommendations
Let me finish by complimenting the Population Division once again for the important work it does for the international community.
Thank you.