On the sidelines of the Conference "Shaping Europe’s Demographic Future", which is being held yesterday and today in Sofia, Republic of Bulgaria, the Director of the State Statistical Office, Apostol Simovski, met with UNFPA Executive Director, Natalia Kanem, and Alanna Armitage, Director of UNFPA’s Regional Office for Eastern Europe and Central Asia.
The importance of official statistics was emphasised at the meeting as a basis for creating demographic development policies to address the challenges facing the Balkan region and beyond, namely population ageing, fertility, gender equality, the interlinkages between demography and democracy, etc.
Ms. Kanem stressed the importance of the successful Census 2021 in the Republic of North Macedonia and the impetus that the census data will give to create new programmes for improvement and further development of all activities undertaken in terms of demographic development of the country and the region as a whole.
The outstanding cooperation between the two institutions, the State Statistical Office and UNFPA, was also emphasised, and it will be further intensified in the future, taking into account the needs of society for timely and high-quality official statistics.
The Macedonian delegation to the Conference consists of the Minister of Labour and Social Policy, Jagoda Shahpaska, the Director of the State Statistical Office, Apostol Simovski, and other representatives from various fields, as well as the UNFPA National Office.
