The opening ceremony of the Training Centre of the Institute of Economics and Demography of the National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Tajikistan was held in Dushanbe.

Within the framework of the new project “Strengthening Demographic Statistics in Tajikistan” funded by the Government of the Russian Federation, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) launched a fully equipped training centre at the Institute of Economics and Demography of the National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Tajikistan (IED NAS RT), having provided modern computer hardware and components, integrated software packages (Eviews and Stata). The main goal of the Project is to identify/address demographic data-related gaps and improve data use for planning, programming, budgeting, and investments.

The opening ceremony of the training centre was attended by Vise-president  of the National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Tajikistan Muhammad Abdurahmon Navruz, the Ambassador of the Russian Federation to the Republic of Tajikistan Mr Igor Lyakin-Frolov,  Director of the IED NAS RT Dr Sharif Rakhimzoda, UNFPA Tajikistan Country Director Mr Yu Yu (online), UNFPA Tajikistan Head of Office Dr Nargis Rakhimova, as well as by officers of the above organisations and media representatives.

“In the spirit of strategic partnership and alliance, Russia provides continued support for the development of Tajikistan, including in the field of demographic statistics, which plays a key role in building-up the  socio-economic policy of the country for years to come,” noted  Igor Lyakin-Frolov, the Ambassador of the Russian Federation to the Republic of Tajikistan.

The new training centre houses modern equipment, in particular, 16 PCs, 2 MFPs (printers), videoconferencing system, interactive whiteboard, projector, as well as air conditioner and numerous furniture. Also, UNFPA purchased 16 STATA software licenses and 16 Eviews software licenses.

As a next step, UNFPA will work on building analytical capacity of national partners employing powerful statistical packages to enhance socio-economic and demographic projection/forecasting, modelling tools, data manipulation, visualization, statistics and automated reporting. The knowledge gained will be used for data analysis, forecasting/projection on national and sub-national levels to produce a series of policy-oriented researches/surveys that contribute to evidence-based national policy formulation.

The Government of the Russian Federation has allocated US $ 2.15 million to support this project.