Pacific Statistics Standing Committee (PSSC)

The Pacific Statistics Steering Committee (PSSC) was originally established by the 3rd Regional Conference of Heads of Planning and Statistics (HOPS) at its meeting in July 2010. Its main purpose was to oversee the implementation of the Ten-Year Pacific Statistics Strategy (TYPSS) 2010–2020.

With the increasing importance of statistics to the governments of the Pacific Island Countries and Territories (PICTs), it was agreed at the 5th meeting of HOPS in 2017 that as part of new Pacific Statistics Governance Structure, the PSSC should, in future be styled the “Pacific Statistics Standing Committee”. This change in name would reflect the evolving role of the PSSC into becoming an official subsidiary body of HOPS.

It was further agreed that, in future, PSSC would meet in years when HOPS did not meet, and would be a space for members to share updates on progress in various statistics related activities, monitoring implementation and progress of the TYPSS and other essential statistics-related processes and identifying priorities for NSOs and development partner attention.

In this new role PSSC would be a decision-making body and would be empowered to make recommendations to HOPS on issues that are significant for statistics development in the Pacific region, such as the TYPSS.

The First Meeting of the PSSC in its new role took place in Fiji on 1st and 2nd November 2018; Visit page.

PSSC members are Government Statisticians (or a senior representative) of Australia, Cook Is, Fiji, Guam (Represented by FSM), Tonga, Nauru, New Zealand, Tokelau and Vanuatu. Polynesia sub-region is represented by Cook Is and Tonga; Melanesia sub-region is represented by Fiji and Vanuatu; Micronesia sub-region is represented by Guam and Nauru. Smaller National Statistics Offices is represented by Tokelau.

The following partner agencies and donor countries attend the PSSC meetings as observers DFAT and MFAT, PFTAC, PIFS, UNICEF, UNFPA and World Bank.

Secretariat services will be provided by the Director, Statistics for Development Division (SDD).