OECS Secretariat, Castries, St. Lucia, January 2011

The OECS Secretariat with the support of the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) has commenced the implementation of a statistical data management and dissemination system that would considerably bolster the region’s capacity to manage and secure ready access to a wide range of statistical information and data.

The primary objective of this system is to strengthen the capabilities of the National Statistical Offices (CSOs) in the OECS Member States, the OECS Secretariat and the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) in the areas of statistical data management and dissemination, so as to allow these institutions to respond in an efficient and timely manner to requests for socio-economic data, and specifically trade data, in support of national and regional commitments and initiatives.

The Data Dissemination System (DDS), which was specifically developed for the OECS, will be deployed in the statistics unit of each of the eleven (11) project beneficiaries, namely the CDB, OECS Secretariat and nine (9) CSOs from OECS Member States.

The Data Dissemination System will include the following components:

1. A secure and centralized data warehouse consisting of socio-economic and merchandise trade databases;
2. An automated system for the publication of Internet ready statistical tables;
3. An (optional) corporate website for disseminating statistical information in an Intranet and or Internet environment;
4. A merchandise trade and tariff web database application for the CSOs in the OECS Member States;
5. Tools for updating the relevant databases and web applications;
6. Electronic user manuals and or help references.

The installation of the system commenced at the OECS Secretariat in December 2010 and will subsequently be installed in all OECS Member States by 31^st March 2011.