PRESS RELEASE
On Tuesday, October 15, 2019, the Statistical Institute of Belize (SIB), along with its partners in the National Statistical System (NSS), celebrated the eleventh annual observance of Caribbean Statistics Day under the theme “Building the Resilience of the Caribbean Community”. Caribbean Statistics Day serves to showcase the contributions being made to the field of official statistics, and the day was commemorated with a public exhibition held at the Belize Institute of Management in Belize City. Displays highlighted work being done by the SIB as well as the Police Department’s Joint Intelligence Coordinating Center in collaboration with the Belize Crime Observatory, Central Bank of Belize, Customs and Excise Department, Ministry of Health and University of Belize. Various primary, secondary and tertiary schools from across Belize City visited the exhibition and participated in games and giveaways.
During the past year, the SIB has been actively engaged in the development of the country’s National Statistical System. Technical training sessions were held, the Bachelor’s Degree in Statistics and Certificate in Geographic Information Systems were introduced at the University of Belize, and several scholarships were awarded to deserving students to pursue studies in these areas. In addition, the Belize National Statistics Portal, a dissemination platform for a collection of several hundred national indicators along with their accompanying metadata, was launched in July of this year.
The Statistical Institute of Belize also took this opportunity to continue its public awareness efforts in preparation for the upcoming 2020 Population and Housing Census. Over the past twelve months, the Institute completed the mapping of all of the country’s urban areas and commenced mapping of rural areas, conducted the first test of its Census questionnaire, and commenced its Census recruitment drive. A second test of the questionnaire will be done later this year. Recruitment will continue until the end of November and interested persons may apply online on the SIB’s Census website. The 2020 Population and Housing Census will officially commence on Census Day, May 12, 2020.
