(OECS Secretariat, Castries, St. Lucia, July 20^th 2012) The Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) Secretariat will convene a follow-up OECS training workshop on Poverty and Inequality Measurement in St. Lucia from 23^rd – 27^th July, 2012.

The primary purpose of the second training activity will be to complement and supplement material covered in a second E-Learning course on poverty and inequality measurement, based on analytical material and which have been completed by staff of OECS Statistics offices ahead of the workshop. The second E-Learning course covered five (5) modules, namely:

This second workshop will focus on concepts related to poverty and inequality (living standards distribution - income and consumption aggregates and adjustment; poverty lines; poverty measures and inequality measurement) and will also provide participants with practical tools to directly apply the new knowledge and produce analysis, using a software application (ADEPT).

Sean Curtis Mathurin at the OECS Secretariat says: “this second training activity will build-on the successes of the first training workshop and will advance the overall objectives of promoting that OECS countries produce a common regional household survey as well as encouraging the analysis of poverty and inequality based on the resulting data.”

The training activity will help to further enhance the institutional capacity of National Statistical Offices in OECS countries to conduct household surveys and to produce indicators on the evolution of poverty and inequality in the OECS region.