Paris (France), 20 November 2019 - The Centers of Excellence of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), which strengthen countries' statistical, analytical and monitoring capacities in the fields of crime, government, victimization, public security and justice, participated in the second edition of the Paris Peace Forum from 11 to 13 November 2019.

The Centers were selected as one of the 120 global projects that had the opportunity to interact with around 7,000 people that attended the Forum, together with representatives from 140 countries and 13 Heads of state. It was a high-impact event, bringing together leaders such as the Presidents of France and the Democratic Republic of Congo, Emmanuel Macron and Félix Tshisekedi, the Vice-President of the People's Republic of China Wang Qishan, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and the President-elect of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen. During the Paris Peace Forum, the staff of the Centers of Excellence engaged directly with over 150 Civil Society Organizations, Researchers, Member States Representatives and Students to advocate about the need for having better data as a first step towards designing effective public policies that enable people to live in peace and security in their communities.

Speaking at the pitch of the Centers of Excellence, Salomé Flores, Coordinator of the Centre of Excellence of Mexico, presented UNODC's vision to support Member States from improving their crime and criminal justice statistics, highlighting that data is the only way to understand trends, identify priorities and target policies accordingly.

She stated that statistics are essential to inform policy and the importance of considering the community as a key element to develop citizen driven data. The second recently opened jointly with Statistics Korea (KOSTAT) and covers the Asia Pacific region and is based in Korea. Its creation follows up on the Road map to improve the quality and availability of crime statistics at the national and international levels endorsed by the United Nations Statistical Commission (UNSC) and the Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice (CCPCJ).UNODC has two Centers of Excellence for Statistical Information on Government, Public Security, Victimization and Justice in the world: the first was founded together with the National Institute of Statistics and Geography of Mexico (INEGI) and covers the region of Latin America and the Caribbean.

Chengdu (China), 6 November - The "Third Regional Meeting on Crime and Criminal Justice Statistics: Towards modern and efficient crime statistics systems" was held in Chengdu, China, from 29 to 31 October.

Co-organized by the newly established UNODC-KOSTAT Centre of Excellence on Crime and Criminal Justice statistics , the meeting brought together 50 international, regional, and national experts to review recent progress on crime and criminal justice statistics and identify ways to improve data quality and availability in the Asia and the Pacific region.

Among other things, the event focused on reporting Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) indicators, supporting responses to the UN-Crime Trends Survey (UN-CTS) and providing implementation assistance for the International Classification of Crimes for Statistical Purposes (ICCS).

"Participants acknowledged that the Asia-Pacific region is lagging behind regarding crime statistics, contrary to what happens in other fields, such as economic or poverty statistics," said Kes Choi, Coordinator of the UNODC-KOSTAT Centre of Excellence for Statistics on Crime and Criminal Justice in Asia and the Pacific (CoE). "An acceleration is needed to enable countries and citizens to monitor progress towards SDGs and the Centre of Excellence has set this as one of its priorities, through support to implementation of the ICCS and strengthened technical skills at country level" she added.

A central aim of the meeting was to initiate a dialogue between national agencies working in crime and criminal justice statistics, ensuring a collaborative approach to this issue. The event also provided an opportunity for participants to discuss regional challenges and priorities, specifically related to monitoring progress towards the SDGs. Working groups facilitated exchanges on statistics regarding physical, psychological and sexual violence; physical and sexual harassment; homicide data and; corruption and bribery surveys.

At the conclusion of the meeting 15 participating States agreed on the importance to develop national strategic plans to enhance mechanisms related to crime and criminal justice statistics. For example, a single coordinating body to oversee production of relevant data; increase advocacy to reinforce national commitment to SDGs; familiarise relevant bodies with the SDG monitoring framework; and to consider development of dedicated surveys, or add-on modules, to pre-existing surveys which provide data for SDG indicators.

At the regional level, the UNODC-KOSTAT Centre of Excellence will continue to support methodological development through innovation, sharing best practices and developing a strong network of stakeholders for capacity building, particularly through the development of a Regional Advisory Group which will offer guidance to the Centre. Throughout this process, the Centre will build technical capacity of countries in the region through understanding regional needs, while developing a sub-regional focus to ensure relevance of the technical assistance.

The event was jointly organized by the Institute for Crime Prevention of the Ministry of Justice (ICPMJ) of China, the UNODC-KOSTAT CoE, the Research and Trends Analysis of UNODC, the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), and the Thailand Institute of Justice (TIJ), with support from the UNODC-INEGI Centre of Excellence for Statistical Information on Governance, Security, Victimization and Justice (UNODC-INEGI CoE).

Mexico City (United States of Mexico), 17-20 September – In 2010, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI) reached an agreement to develop a Center of Excellence in Statistical Information on Government, Crime, Victimization, and Justice (CoE Mex). Since its foundation, CoE Mex has provided technical assistance to countries in Latin America and the Caribbean region to improve the quality and quantity of crime statistics, public security, corruption, government and justice through surveys and administrative records.

During the four day visit, CoE Mex presented on UN statistical work, and their own outputs including capacity building in corruption, Victimization and Police Surveys, Measuring Illicit Financial Flows and Human Trafficking, Statistical Quality Assessments, Local Safety Audits and the International Classification of Crime for Statistical Purposes. INEGI also attended to provide a national perspective of their experience in relevant policymaking.

The visit provided a thorough insight into the workings of the CoE Mex and considerations for the sister programme serving Asian and the Pacific including strategic direction, potential challenges, and areas in which to maximize the service for the CoE Kor can provide to the region.

Further information on the CoE Kor can be found at Twitter @CoE_UNODC and Facebook @UNODC.KOSTAT.CoE and further information on the CoE Mex can be found at Twitter @CdE_UNODC, Facebook at @cde.unodc.inegi and website at www.cde.unodc.inegi.org.mx.